Reflections

Greetings and Salutations!

You know, for the past few days I have been thinking about my "Human Experience" entry. I've been thinking about my grandpa and his WWII experience. I've been thinking about the other men and women who were directly involved in WWII either as a civilian, a soldier, a nurse, or heaven forbid as a Jewish person in Eastern Europe. All this thinking really bothers me.

Recently I read Clara's War: One Girl's Story of Survival. It was the most amazingly written, story of a young Jewish girl who lived in Poland during WWII and who actually survived it. I hadn't read the entire title of the book and had never heard of it before. I didn't know she would survive. I thought it was like The Diary of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who didn't. Clara's War told of the ravages of war. She documents the lives and deaths of many of her friends and family. She tells it like it is, as it is happening. It was an alarming story balanced with her discovering the true meaning behind the prayers and traditions she practiced her entire 15 years on the Earth. It was touching and devastating all in the same breath.

I was thinking about this book and tonight I turned on the History channel and there was a documentary of WWII. I turned it on just as the Allies were liberating their first concentration camp. The raw footage of those first and lasting images of those piles of skeletons and the diaries of the soldiers who liberated them and then the nurses who treated those who were still alive---yet looked like the walking dead---makes me realize I will never understand what those people went through. I will never understand the horror, terror or amount of cruelty exhibited in those concentration camps. I will never understand what it's like to be those valiant troops as they shot at other human beings, freezing in a snow covered trench while those very same beings shoot at me. Nor will I understand what it was like for a Japanese family to have the atomic bomb dropped on their city. Or those Japanese Americans who were herded into camps here in the United States.

At least I hope and pray I never fully understand, but I hope I can feel the compassion necessary to do something about it. By compassion I don't mean pity. To me pity means feeling sorry for someone or something while thinking they are somehow lower than I am. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you have a better definition than I do. I guess more than compassion, I hope that I can feel empathy.

Today I went to the Peer-to-Peer meeting at NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill). Each person had 6 minutes to summarize their experience and 3 minutes to for the group to respond. I heard some of the most horrific situations and experiences that I have ever heard in my life.

I have to admit I tried to share mine and I got choked up. I couldn't look anyone in the eye while explaining it. I think part of the reason was because no one had ever heard the entire, real story, although many have lived it with me. The other part of my emotions stemmed from this oddly empowering declaration of triumph. I survived! Right now I feel like I am more than existing. I feel like I am living---and loving it! -MOPS