Excerpt:
Two things about her stand out in my mind.
One was that her telling me that her mother had been in a mental institution for most if not all of A-K's life. Along with many other equally horrific circumstances, this had made for a difficult, if not traumatic childhood. The way I remember her telling it, Ann-Kristin had given up trying to make contact with her mother. She had self-pity, anger, and resentment around her mother. And one day she realized (with the help of her own spiritual guides): Call your mother once a week and tell her everything that's going on your life just as you wish she could tell you. Give to her what you wish she could give you herself. Give her the news, tell her the flower you saw on your walk, the triumph at work, the little argument you had with your friend.
And over time, the resentment and self-pity disappeared. What was left was compassion. What was left was love.
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My Notes/Thoughts:
Besides Caryll Houselander...I think of Elie Wiesel:
“…the love of knowledge…love of the Torah is deepening it…the ‘lights’ of the ‘seventh day’ still flickered and beckoned in the depths of my memory. The beginning of the Sabbath. The celebration of its perfect holiness…”
“As I returned from the house of prayer with my father, and when I became older, we both sang:
“Shalom aleichem, malachei ha-sharet malachei ha-shalom”
[Peace be with you, servant angels, angels of peace.]
“The following day, after the morning prayer and the meal, my father made all of us fulfill our charitable duties…Dina organized cultural get-togethers. My mother visited hospitals. As for me, my father used to take me to the edge of the forest to visit the Jewish patients in the insane asylum….Though he was not at all wealthy and worked hard to earn a living, he took an interest in the insane, for according to him, they were more defenseless than the poor.”
“At first he used to leave me outside, in the courtyard or garden, while he went and brought ‘his patients’ sweets and fruits. During the Pesach holiday he gave them matzoh.”
“…once I spoke with one…who said, “Who can rescue me today?”
Doriel digressed and said to the doctor: “There’s also religion, Doctor. By clashing with reason, it can prevent you from living in reality…The rigidity of the laws, the bewitchment of the mystics: these I knew and even liked….You who belong to another world and another time...Love
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