Broken Birds – Grown Children Of Holocaust Survivors

Jeannette — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:31:34 +0000

What would you do if your mother unexpectedly died, and left the family
residence not divided up equally amongst her five children but entirely to a
single child? You may say, Well it’s her money and she can leave it to
anyone she likes. But is that how you would you feel down deep inside? You’d
been a loyal, attentive son or daughter. You called every day. You were
there at their beck and call whenever she needed anything. But, in the end,
that parent’s final message to you is I liked him better. People will tell
you that that isn’t how it was meant, but that’s nevertheless how it feels.
.
My Mom died four and a half years ago. All too soon after her death, her
widowed husband of fifty-four years and five children found themselves
seated in the attorney’s office to hear Mom’s will read aloud. We all had a
hunch there might be trouble found in Mom’s Last Will and Testament, but we
were nevertheless shocked. Mom had bypassed Dad altogether and given the
title of the family home to my brother.
.
It would take four grueling years to complete the battle for that house.
During that time I realized how much she had buffered the five of us from
each other when she was alive. Once she was gone, it took little time for
this family, which she had once held together with the force of Jewish
guilt, to splinter and fracture irrevocably.
.
In my fifty years of life Mom had taught me many life truths. It took a
long time for me to understand that many of her ideas/truths/ways of looking
at the world weren’t true at all. My fingers could barely type as fast as
the words were coming to me and it took many many drafts to get the anger
out.
.
Jewish or Gentile, Black or White as we Boomers age, many of us will head
down the road to Inheritance hell. It isn’t about greed. It is about justice
– and about feeling like our presence and contributions to family life
have counted for something over the years.
.
“Broken Birds, The Story of my Momila” is the story of my journey. It
explores parent child relationships and sibling rivalries, and how, after
fifty years, some things just don’t change. I discovered some of my own
truths and for me it was better late than never. To view an excerpt please
visit: www.BrokenBirds.com.

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Sorting Out the Past

Eva Pasco — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:01:29 +0000

Barring our repression of painful memories which we may be loathe confronting, what does one do with memorabilia of the past whether in the guise of tangible mementos or fond memories? I have no compunction dredging and revisiting events from the past to reinterpret them from my current vantage point in life. Selected memories seem to flourish under a patina of nostalgia from the good old days. I take comfort in storing fond memories in the deep recesses of my mind for their imminent retrieval.

It’s the tangible mementos linking me to the past I take umbrage with. Pictures, for one–mostly Polaroid, some in black and white… I have slews of them in various unsorted envelopes still containing the original negatives. Lacking the motivation to make chronological sense through scrap booking, these photographs will languish in boxes.

I also have issues with revisiting places from the past. Once so significant, they no longer fit the schematic configuration of my present life so I let them lie as sleeping dogs. I still recall what I wore on the last day of my teaching career but I’ve never walked through those set of doors again to see what became of my classroom inside a school that was my second home for 29 years.

It’s the same with movies I’ve taped, erroneously thinking I will make the time to view favorites again. I finally had the good sense to throw away my home brewed installment of Winds of War. What was I thinking?

It should come as no surprise that I don’t do high school or college reunions either… I will always cherish memories from the past for their recycled wisdom, amusing anecdotes, and animations of family members no longer present. There is just too much living to do for me to get bogged down with memorabilia right now.

Eva Pasco is the author of Women’s Fiction for gals over forty. Her novel, Underlying Notes, is available through AMAZON:

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1218886392/ref=sr_ex_i_0?ie=UTF8&rs=1000&keywords=Underlying%20Notes%20by%20Eva%20Pasco&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AUnderlying%20Notes%20by%20Eva%20Pasco

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Broken Birds – Grown Children Of Holocaust Survivors

Sorting Out the Past