From the Imagination of Dr. Nicki: Real Life - Stories I Never Knew... Part 10

I hope you are enjoying my current blog feature, "From the Imagination of Dr. Nicki"… It spotlights original fiction by me. These stories never happened… They are original fiction pieces from my imagination!

Over the course of these two weeks, I'm presenting "Stories I Never Knew...", a 12-part fictional blog story. I hope you enjoy it. Today, I present PART 10. If you missed any of the previous parts, here are those links to read first:

PART 1 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_19.html

PART 2 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_20.html

PART 3 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_21.html

PART 4 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_22.html

PART 5 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_23.html

PART 6 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_24.html

PART 7 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_26.html

PART 8 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_27.html

PART 9 - http://drnickimonti.blogspot.com/2016/09/from-imagination-of-dr-nicki-real-life_28.html

Over and over in my life I find myself wanting to lay my head down upon my pillow of memories.  Even the heartbreaks and sludge-covered ones feel sweet and comforting to me. As if they give me definition. Remind me that I am not, nor have I ever been, truly alone. We speak of that often, do we not – this loneliness. So many feel that now. Like a plague it creeps among and between us, directing our choices. The road before us becomes tar black with our preoccupation.  

I am remembering now the family vacation we took when I was seventeen. Everyone came except Grandma Lollie who’d already passed, although, I swear, I could often feel her there, in this Poland of hers. More buoyant than in life…and more joyful too. Many years earlier I’d found a photo of her as a young girl. It was a small, scalloped edged picture taken at some distance, but even through the cracked, faded black and white images you could hear her laughter. Rainbows of glee all the way across time. She wears a soft, cotton skirt flowing out from generous hips. She holds the skirt in glad hands and appears to balance on one foot. A dancer, no doubt.  This is the girl who followed us into the ancient Temple.

I suppose for some that temple must have seemed cold. Simplicity strikes many that way, I think. But when I sat upon the stark wooden benches, rubbing my back against the cracks and lines, I could absolutely feel the long fingers of yesterday tickling through me. And images came up too. Of black-scarved women bent with tears of loss, and bored, squirming children anxious to return to play, and important Rabbi’s reminding listeners of God’s intention.

Grandfather, Father and David sat together. Generations of men. Descending stairs. I could see only their backs, but could feel the strong ribbon that wound between them…tying them together like a string of precious pearls.

And Mama sat with me. In the middle of the silence she took my hand. I looked over at her, but she never looked back, so I simply closed my eyes and let myself feel the importance of the moment.

We sat there in that Temple for…an eon, I believe. So long I could actually hear the old Cantors thrilling out the kind of music that always made me shiver and cry.

Tomorrow, I was told, we would go to visit Auschwitz. I didn’t want to go. I knew I’d be able to hear the screams and feel the desperate fear. But my family said we must always remember, and that honoring the memory was important. Looking back now I know they were right, for losing any part of these memories would be like losing a finger or a foot. We could get by, probably, but there would always be this knowing of something missing. Some phantom twitches of what was once there. And we would be less complete than we could be.    

But that evening – the night of the Temple visit – I was content. For that night I heard the song of my ancestors, and it was good.