You can consider this an adjunct post to The Choices We Make if you wish as my visit into the family vaults made me reach back into a thread I tugged on two years ago when I asked the FB Tracing The Tribe group for help.
These are photos of the tombstones of my Great Great Grandparents who left Kishinev for Montreal Canada and eventually moved to the U.S.
I think they left because of the Kishniev Massacre but need to do more research on it and am curious as to what they may have witnessed and or been exposed to.
Clearly they survived and for that I am grateful.
Were We Silverman Or Zilberman?
I have found multiple documents that suggest the family name was Silverman at some point. Others make it look like we might have been Zilberman which is funny because I knew a David Zilberman that I didn’t like much.
When I was a kid I remember hearing kids in school argue over who had the better name because one was Silver and the other was gold.
I was semi ambivalent as my last name was neither though when I got older I found out I had relatives whose last name was Gold to go along with my grandparents the Silvers.
It is hard not to wonder how antisemitism impacted my family and led it here. I know of relatively few stories of things that happened to us but there is no doubt we experienced it.
Though I never could have guessed we would be exposed today to things that our ancestors knew. I never needed nor wanted that particular birthright but we are where we are.
I am more bothered that my children didn’t get the benefits of the childhood I did and that they are seeing some of this. They are old enough to manage and secure in who they are but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get old sometimes.
Life in Texas is very different than LA and it is not uncommon to be the only Jew or one of the few.
I never know exactly where these posts are going to take me and what sort of journey I’ll go on but I appreciate the learning experience.
You’re A Beloved Pain-In-My-Ass
That’s Cookie Doo, generally known as Cookie and he is 14. It’s fair to say his name was influenced by Scooby Doo and that like Scooby he likes his snacks.
I think we took that picture during the lockdown but neither one of us have much gray in our beards. I have written about and spoken about him more than usual because age is catching up and he has made me nervous a few times.
Today he left me a gift in the house and after I cleaned it up I sat on the floor and spoke with him. I told him that taking advantage of my love for him by ignoring me wasn’t going to sit well.
“You’re lucky you’re not a person because I hate being ignored and I don’t easily forget that sort of mistreatment.”
He wagged his tail and barked at me which made me feel good because we’re seeing signs the medicine he is taking now is helping.
It won’t make him a puppy again but it does seem to help with his cough and he is moving around more easily than he was.
I have worked out of a home office for most of the past 14 years so he is often who I talk to most throughout the day.
Once when I took him for a walk he and another dog stopped to sniff each other. As the other dog and owner walked away I looked at Cookie and asked if I should apologize for cutting his balls off.
“I almost feel badly, because mine still work, but hey life isn’t fair now is it.”
It turned out the other dog and owner hadn’t gotten very far and overheard what I said. I shrugged my shoulders, smiled and led Cookie back to the house.
“Maybe it is a good thing you don’t speak English, huh.”
****
My maternal grandfather would enjoy these posts about family. Lipa and Raizel were his grandparents and they lived with his family for a while.
I heard stories about them and my Grandpa Percy as he aged told me it was important to him that he and Grandma Cella weren’t forgotten.
So he’d like my mentioning their names and saying I can still hear him call “Cell, Cella” and how some of us heard that so often it was noticeable when people called her Marcella,
Grandpa was one of the family historians and he would have known the answers to many of the questions I ask today. Sometimes I wonder if I heard the stories behind some things and have forgotten that I once knew.
It is a funny because there are so many things I remember with vivid detail. That is not always a blessing and sometimes it feels like a curse.
I often notice far more than I comment on and sometimes they are things that I find upsetting. I ask myself if those items deserve energy and sometimes even though the answer is no the truth is they still bother me.
Most of the time life is pretty sweet but sometimes it hurts and the reason is tied to people you least expected to hurt you.
But that is part of the point of writing, it is cathartic and it helps you understand what and how you feel. Recently I have a storm of words issue from my fingertips but there will come a time for silence again too.
A time to go away and just be.
And maybe some of that time will be used for figuring out more details about who we once were and how we got here.
Could have ended upon in Israel, South Africa or been part of those who stayed in Canada. Life could have been very different and may still yet be, hard to say.
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