April 21, 2020
One of the nicest things about the pandemic, if there is anything nice about it, is hearing from old friends. It seems that now that people are stuck at home, they reach out to those who they haven’t spoken to in a long time. I have had calls from friends who I haven’t heard from in thirty years and we picked up like it was yesterday. I have exchanged then-and-now pictures with some of them. We discussed what the world was like then as well as how our families have grown up and our losses. The warmth and connection were still there. Perhaps, that is what motivates these calls; the looking to rekindle the meaningful connection or relive the memory of better times.
One of these calls was from a friend of mine who was very moved by his experience when we attended the March of The Living in 2000. Not being Jewish, he was touched by being given permission to travel with my group to Poland to experience the concentration camps and then onto Israel. He was a student of German history and his doctoral dissertation was on National Socialism in Germany or the Nazi party. Being in the actual camps and experiencing firsthand what he studied shook him to his soul. He was forever changed by this experience. I was honored to be there with him.
After the March, I would visit him often at the school where he was a principal. But it stopped and we lost contact. Recently, my daughter told me that he was the best teacher she ever had. The next day, he called me. Was that coincidence? My friend rewrote his published book about life in a barracks at Birkenau during the Holocaust. He was so excited that he called to tell me about it and sent me a copy which I read. In fact, I could not put it down. We have kept in touch since and I hope to travel to see him when the pandemic is over.
What a great feeling I had from this reconnection. Have you experienced anything similar? Let me know via email and I will include your experiences in the next e-Letter.
