Doors Close, Windows Open

Let Go

"Let Go and Let God."    Alcoholics Anonymous

When we returned, the blackboard read:

     * We are always free to choose our reactions even when we do not choose our circumstances

     * We can turn our tragedies into triumph – this is at the core of living meaningfully

     * When we release grudges, we take back our personal power. We stop being victims

"Who else has had an insight from this reading that they would care to share?" Doctor Soren asked after we'd all been seated. Not one person returned late from break.

"I do," said Saul. Doctor Soren motioned to Saul, inviting him to speak.

"This was not an easy story for me to read. My grandfather was a German Jew who got out just in time. He was only twelve when he left. His parents scraped up what little money they had to send him to distant cousin in New York. The plan was for him to get settled and then they would send his sister the following year.  But that never happened. He was the only one from his family to survive. He often spoke of his parents and his younger sister who stayed behind and were killed." Saul paused for a moment. The room fell silent with him.

"Every year on June twenty-third, our grandfather would light a candle and recite the Mourner's Kaddish for his dead sister, mother and father. No matter what day of the week it was, we all made special arrangements to be at his house on that day."

"How did he know they'd died on June twenty-third?" Derrick asked.

"That was the day he left Stuttgart – it was the last day he ever saw them, so for him, that was the day they died."

"Saul, what about Frankl's story held the greatest meaning for you given your family history with the Holocaust?" Doc Soren asked.

"My grandfather made himself a wealthy man. He felt that he had to live big and accomplish enough for all of them. Of course, it never was enough – nothing, and no one – was ever enough for him. He made a lot of money and became a rich, powerful man. On the other hand, he lived a bitter, angry existence. He never forgave what had been done to him and his family. There was always a grudge. I think sometimes he might have been less than honest in some dealings thinking the world owed him. He relished opportunities to buy out smaller businesses, especially if these businesses seemed to be owned by people of northern European descent. It was his 'F-you' to a long-gone world."

"That doesn't sound like a pleasant way to live. What can you learn from his life?"

     "When I heard Polina talking about choices, I reflected on my own grandfather. He made some great choices in business but poor choices with family. My mom was his middle child and first daughter, so he named her Sarah after his sister. He never let her be herself – she was constantly expected to act as he remembered his sister.  My guess is that his sister Sara was not exactly as he remembered her, but he had a hallowed memory of a sister that my mother, and her artistic, free-spirited persona could never emulate. She left home after college, and lived among the artsy crowd for years, eventually finding my father, a guitarist in a band. They got married without her parent's approval or attendance, which drove a deep divide into an already shattered relationship. My parents traveled like gypsies, neither of them fitting in the "real world."  They enjoyed several years of living in a van, driving from gig to gig, living hand to mouth. But that didn't work after I was born. They needed stability to raise a child, but neither knew how to create it. A few years later, they made an uneasy peace with my grandfather, and we moved into his Connecticut estate. Both parents wound up working for my grandfather's business. Mom tried living up to his expectations, but he was always yelling at her.  My dad had enough  by the time I was fifteen and divorced my mother. Most of all, my grandfather.  Dad moved to Austin to be part of the music scene, and I moved to live with him a few years later, which is how I wound up here!" Saul smiled took a little bow from his seated position. Perhaps he needed a little comic relief to lighten the heaviness of his story.