Ending

Two weeks ago, we said goodbye to Papa.  A few days later, I promised John I would write about him.  I don’t know why he asked me to do that, but I can only imagine it is for the same reasons that I wanted to write about my father after his death.  We are terrified of forgetting.  And by the time they are gone, we’ve already forgotten so much.  The sound of his voice, his Polish accent, the smell of his drug-store cologne, his toothless old-man smile.

I can’t think of John without remembering Papa.  Before we even had an idea of dating, John talked about spending his Spring Break going to breakfast with his grandfather.  They were part best friends, part father and son, part son and father…inseparable in many ways, and so good for one another.  “My best grandson,” Papa would call him.  Being only 1 of 2 grandsons may make this seem more like a jab at the other grandson.  But, I think Papa was saying, “My Best Friend” – somebody who never showed an ounce of impatience toward a man with so many unmet needs.

We will always fear forgetting when we lose the ones we love the most.  And, inevitably, we will forget a lot of things.  But all of those things that we forget, somehow, we don’t miss them.  We just miss the person, we miss the spirit.   We will miss his spirit – his stubborn, hard worn, but loving spirit.  We won’t forget the embarrassing things he did and said in restaurants.  We won’t forget the way he asked the same questions over and over – he was just looking for a connection.  He was difficult to please, but he would fight to the death for the ones he loved.

I don’t really believe in any sort of predetermined fate.  I don’t necessarily think that people die for a reason or that bad things happen for a reason.  Who wants to live in a world where pain is calculated and planned by some higher power, a world where the right crystal ball could tell us when we’d feel sad?  But, without a doubt, some good may come out of our greatest losses, our greatest pain.  When my father died, a long stream of events led to my break up with a serious boyfriend and my eventual relationship with John.  Do I credit my father’s death with finding me the right husband? No.  But I don’t know where my life would have taken me without that loss, and I know that it would not be here.  And I love my life.

Papa survived six years in four different concentration camps.  He lost his mother, father, and 8 siblings in one of our world’s most horrific periods of history.  He was liberated from his near-certain death at the end of World War II and eventually made his way to this country, where he struggled, stole, labored in a meat market, but eventually married and had two children.  One of those children went on to have four more children, one of whom I married.  And so, I am here in this beautiful, wonderful gift of a life.  And I know that I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for a terrible, horrible, painful event that stole the lives of thousands.  Was it worth all the pain and loss so I could be happy?  Certainly not.  But sometimes, good comes from evil.

I thank you Papa, for this gift.  If you had not fought for survival, we would not be here today.  I would not be writing this about you.  You always wished you had more children, you always felt you had not done enough.  And yet, you were responsible for so much good, so much happiness, so much life.  And for all of our happiness, I thank you.

And I hope you left us knowing how much you were loved.