Do You Remember? I Do!

 

Remember once waking up in a strange

place in complete darkness and silence

wondering where your mother was and

suddenly struck with the thought that 

everyone had died and so had you? Remember

when as a toddler you were taken to a place

where nuns in habit looked after small children

whose mothers worked in garment factories?

Remember hearing a loud street band with

brass musicians in uniforms of an army

calling itself Salvation? Remember when

horse-drawn delivery wagons brought ice

blocks to your street, house-to-house for the

kitchen ice box? Remember your 'uncle'

smothering you as you lay in bed? Remember

strangers stopping you in the street to ask where

you were from? Remember your mother taking

you to a sweat shop to work the summer months

at age 13? Remember a year later working for a 

toy factory stamping out tin toys? Remember

how hushed and joyful it was when you were

married at 18? I remember all that. I remember

my father was orphaned at 13 and became a refugee

farm worker. I remember my mother's squint as an

eye injury from a bomb tossed into her parents'

Pale of Settlement home. I remember and think

how very fortunate I am and how kind life has

been to me for I had little and now have much.