Roots

As my family reminisced this weekend, my aunt spoke of things she had experienced during war times and the devastation thereafter – hunger, rootlessness, and transience. Hiding, scavenging, wanting. Lacking.


She talked about diving into ditches to escape machine gun bullets, of collecting nettles to make soup to stave off starvation.


And she also spoke of her immigrant experience. So many of the things she talked about reminded me of bits and pieces of my kids’ current lives: moving to New York City to live a brand new life that resembled nothing she’d ever known. Sleeping on mattresses lining a relative’s living room floor. Sharing a small apartment with three families - one bathroom between fourteen people. Moving from place to place. Having parents who took the jobs as janitors and superintendents of buildings. Being frugal. Caring for siblings and cousins. Getting food stamps. Starting a new school where she didn’t know the language. Having family members that didn’t speak English, didn’t understand America.


And now look… we sat in her beautiful, luxurious living room, feasting for days to celebrate her seventieth birthday. There were three magnificent cakes, and not even the combined forces of all the extended family could finish them. She speaks three languages, has a PhD and has retired from being the dean of a major university. She has five gorgeous grandchildren that have every opportunity open to them and have never experienced deprivation, and hopefully never will.


So she embodies the American Dream. She worked hard, she overcame, she succeeded. Her life’s story makes me believe in what I am doing, makes me believe in the kids. Her life is proof that things can be hard but they can also get better. That hard work will get you somewhere. That the better life is possible, that it is worth striving for, that sacrifices made for kids’ futures do pay off. Her story is hope. Her story, and others like it, is why I am doing what I am doing.