Dad is the last of his generation in our family.  Weakened and confused, but nonetheless, here.  He is our only link with the past.

In his papers are where my great-grandparents’ graves are located. And a family tree.  And what happened to Grandma Dora’s ship-shvesters (ship sisters) whom she met making the arduous voyage to America.  I haven’t thought about that in years.  And was my great-grandfather’s wife named Tillie?  There is some confusion.

But we must sort it all out.  Because this is our history.  We are the grandchildren of the surviving remnant of formerly European Jews.  Most of the family got out before the Holocaust, but after the pogroms — the massacres — that scarred them for life.

We must now take ownership. For we are the elder generation.  And if you don’t know whence you’ve come, you cannot chart the course ahead.

We can no longer rely on others to remember, recount and record our history.  It is ours to do now.  Cousin Gentle, with great foresight, has already started that project.

We must search our minds for stories because it cannot be that the lives of our great-grandparents, our grandparents and, alas, our parents will fade from memory.  There must be someone always to light candles of remembrance in their names.  To bring their memories out of the darkness and into the light.