Where will you be?

To begin: You have to know who you are, to understand where you are going. In many ways, I have walked my life in a gauzy haze of undefined history, a scattered and broken family tree that blew away like tumbleweeds. It is only recently (after a stilted attempt years ago with my beloved Nana, her mind already starting to fold into the dementia that would be her death) that I have managed to make the connections and reach out to the few distant relatives that I have heard of to put the pieces together. My mom's side of the family is for another blog post, an exploration of outcasts on the Isle of Man, and horse thieves of unknown origin in the early settlements. Of my father's side, I knew just a few things: there weren't many of us left, and we were Jewish. Jewish wasn't so much an identity for me, as a reason for having dual holidays in December (my Jewish father married my Episcopalian mother), as well as something I occasionally got teased for growing up in a rural, white, Christian upstate New York community. My big Jewish nose. My frizzy Jewish hair. My ample Jewish backside. "Jewish" became something that I subtly learned to hide, and certainly not a cultural identity. 

Enter Friday night. I am in the D.C. area for two weeks on the FEMA campus, learning the balancing act of being an emergency manager, contemplating a career direction I never expected and yet find deeply satisfying. On Friday night, I had a chance to leave campus and meet up with my father's cousin, a man who had friended me on Facebook last year in an attempt to put his own pieces of the puzzle together.  Suffice it to say, that from the minute I sat down across from a man who channeled the image of my grandfather (who passed away when I was 14), I was handed the thread to start weaving the story together. Along with his wonderful partner Marcie, over sushi we pored through pictures of relatives, the women strong-boned and powerful and eyes deeply set, women who looked like me. Great aunts, great-great grandmothers, distant cousins, a small but distinct tribe. Words I had never heard like "Sephardic", "Shtetl"; place names like "Janow"... all pieces of a nebulous mystery I had yearned for years to begin understanding. Our visit was all too short, but I left with a new sense of belonging, and a mission to seek answers to a question at the Holocaust Museum the next day: Why are there only a small handful of descendants?

The next day, I met up with a few classmates from EMI, and we walked for hours around the national mall, taking in the monuments and memorials with reverence and awe. We chose as a group to visit the Holocaust Museum a few days before, made all the more interesting by our mixed political views. What follows is a visual tour, a personal discovery, and call to awareness. The "story" to each photo is below the photo. Please read the photos of captions from the museum.

This is the banner that was hanging above the entrance to the Holocaust Museum. "Some Were Neighbors". 

Several in line were sporting red "Make America Great Again" hats, and I even spotted a small pin of a confederate flag. We were all in line for the same experience. Something had brought each of us there, whether it be answers, validations, curiosity, or challenges. The words "collaboration and complicity" echoed in my head. At the same time we waited patiently in line, the current president was signing anti-immigration laws into measure and demoting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as the Director of National Intelligence. He then appointed White House Chief Strategist  and admitted white nationalist Steve Bannon to the National Security Council.  Please read the next photo very carefully, especially the smaller print.

Let me repeat: the president placed Steve Bannon at the top of the National Security Council. I'll quote the Washing Post to give you a better idea of what the NSC does:

 "The idea of the National Security Council (NSC), established in 1947, is to ensure that the president has the best possible advice from his Cabinet, the military and the intelligence community before making consequential decisions, and to ensure that, once those decisions are made, a centralized mechanism exists to guarantee their effective implementation. The NSC is effectively the central nervous system of the U.S. foreign policy and national security apparatus." 

Make America Great Again. 

America First.

We will have so much winning, you will get bored with winning.

Believe me. 

National Day of Patriotic Devotion.

Needless to say, my hair did not fit into the acceptable hair color swatches. Those were actual swatches of hair that were used to determine whether a person was of a superior race. I had kept my hair tucked up under a hat, but I chose that moment to let it down. 

The day before, I had never heard of Janow and Janow Lubelski. Here, I see in writing on glass the towns that my ancestry were pushed in to, before they were subjected to "the final answer". This is a glass wall of place names, the length of a hallway. Villages, Shtetls, ghettos that were systematically exterminated while much of the world lay silent. These were the places of my people. The Grabers (the "y" was added in "Grayber" after coming stateside, to sound less Jewish) were primarily in Janow and the surrounding areas of Lublin Voidodship.

Until this point, I had mostly felt numb. Numb observation, and sense of heaviness. A weight I couldn't fathom, and a sense of aching aging. And then, I saw the words of David. David Graber, 19-years old, fighting to carry the message of the atrocity beyond what he knew would most certainly be the end of his life. I can't quite describe the moment of finding my family name emblazoned in a Holocaust memorial. 

I found a corner and leaned into it, and at last, felt the heat of tears. I tried to keep my face to the glass, and feel the grief of this moment privately. An elderly woman came up gently next to me, and placed her hand on my back. "Is this your first time here?" I didn't make eye contact with her, for fear of sobbing. I just nodded. "We are all family. Shalom." 

Shoes. These are not replicas, these are a small sampling of the millions of shoes that remained, long after the bodies had been gassed, or shot, charred, and dumped in mass graves. These are the shoes of the men, women, children, elderly who became the receiving end of rhetoric of fear, and the face of blame and evil. These are the shoes that they wore as they were herded like cattle into train cars, and the shoes that they wore into the undressing rooms, to feel the bare earth under their feet one last time. These are the shoes that covered the feet of my family. All these years later, and in a sterile museum, you can still smell the leather.

I was compelled to take this picture. Behind me is a collection-- a massive pile-- of hair. Hair that looked like mine, dark and wavy and unruly; hair that had been cut off the heads of the naked women and children just before they entered the gas chambers. Hair that was then bundled into 40 lb bales. Jewish hair was considered unfit for wigs, so it was used as fill for mattresses and blankets.

This woman came from the Lublin region. It was jarring to see her picture, and feel almost as if I was looking into a mirror. Her eyes. Her hair. Her cheekbones and lips. Was she a Graber? There was no identification; she was one of a large settlement that was shot to death in a mass grave. The rail cars were full, and there was rumor of rebellion. 

Who will you choose to be?

406. In the holocaust registry, that is the number of individuals who share my name who were murdered. Most of those 406 died in the lesser-know secretive extermination camp of Belzec, although it appears some were sent to Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka. Between 450,000 and 500,000 Jews were slaughtered at Belzec. There are only 7 known survivors of that camp.

43. That is the number of Gra(y)bers who survived the Holocaust era in entirety.

You have to know who you are, to understand where you are going. 

It was less than a hundred years ago that over 6 million human beings were brutally rounded up, branded, tattooed, tortured, and murdered simply for being a race that evoked fear and suspicion in a small segment of a nationalistic population. A brashly spoken and rather disregarded non-politician who wasn't taken as a serious political force took power, manipulated and silenced the media, and created a cabal of loyal henchmen (known as "the Reichstag") who would take control and power of an entire nation within 6 months. The world would mostly remain silent until the horrors were delivered to them in the form of war threatening their own liberties. By the time the camps were liberated and the war ended, 2 out of every 3 European Jews had been murdered. By 1945, most of my ancestors abroad had been exterminated.

You have to know who you are, to understand where you are going. My path forward from here is as clear and distinct as the eternal flame that burns in genocide memorials across the planet. Where will you stand? Will you remain silent? Will you look the other way from the fear and anger and brewing hate, regardless of origin? Or will you take my hand and stand with me and say, "never again"?

Post-election thoughts

I haven't posted anything since the election, and I've had a few people ask me why, given my usual very vocal opinions. The truth is that I still don't have the right words, because honestly, people like me were part of the problem. Sure, I worked my butt off for my candidate, and I passionately told everyone and anyone who would listed why I supported her. But how many times did I passively turn the other way when someone said something hurtful, untrue, or just plain ignorant, and I "let it go" in the name of peace and friendship?

A very brief story: The day after the election, we ran into one of Zane's best friends and his mom at school conferences, both of whom I adore. Zane's BFF was withdrawn and sullen, totally unlike him. His mom, a very strong and proud woman, had tears brimming in her eyes, and her shoulders slumped. I asked what was wrong. They had simply gone shopping, like they do every week, at Fred Meyer, right here in SW Portland. They were immediately threatened and harassed, and fled for home, fearing their safety. IN PORTLAND. You see, they are a Muslim family, and she wears full hijab. The worst part-- when I conveyed my horror and intention to accompany them the next time they go, she said "we've gotten used to the stares and muttered obscenities, but...". STOP THERE. What? This beautiful family of proud American citizens has endured harassment and micro-aggressions this whole time? In liberal Portland? Where have I been?

The answer is, right here this whole time. Yes, I choose love, yes, I choose light-- but I have let people near and dear to me down, in the name of keeping the peace, and not wanting to be offensive. I also believe that the conversation is greater than the political polarization; this is more than Trump vs. Clinton, Liberal vs. Conservative. This. Is. Us.

So here's this cartoon. It's definitely not the same one that keeps popping up on many of my friends' feeds, the whole "all lives matter, can't we just get along"? (Literally, dozens of postings). This cartoonist put into words what I have been feeling for the past week. This doesn't mean that I can't have a conversation or be friends with someone who's views are different. To me, this means that it's time to take a deep, honest, and maybe painful look at how my life and actions have served others, and how I can do better. I am a very privileged white woman living on my little urban farm in Portland, with my white husband, our white kids, our chickens, cats, dog. That is not to say I haven't had hardships-- I have endured terrible things only the closest friends and family to me know-- but I always have this place of relative safety and privilege to return to. When I walk into Fred Meyer, no one is going to call me a terrorist, call my son a n*gger, or threaten me physical harm for the hat or scarf I may be wearing. I am willing to look in the mirror, take stock and appreciation for what I have, and then shatter the mirror to see beyond, because right now, it's about so much more. It's not a sweet little meme of a Trump and Clinton person holding hands, it's messy, sticky, and really, really scary, and every single one of us is accountable.

If you are ready to join me in the conversation, look deeper, work harder, and find the true humanity and love that connect all of us, you know where to find me.

Fire

Weight of an air pack, axe in my hand.
Just before I clip into air--
            the stench of fear-sweat, acrid, alarmed, excited.
Wood splinters as we crash through a door.
The engines whine and rev high behind us, water spraying, blinding, people shouting.
            Something in my back splinters, too.

Keep going, press on, the ghosts say.

The man, he is there, just out of reach. Just up those stairs. Just through that door?
There is too much fire. The furnace blast of flashover
pushes us back out the door.
I will find him later, still almost standing.
A toppled redwood in a blackened forest.

Skin melts at 500 degrees, stretched gaunt over tight bones.
There is a model airplane-- fire engine red-- on the other side of the door.
             Intact. Unscathed.

Fifteen bullet holes in the skinny buddha's body, his blood
drenched onto scorched California earth, nurturing nothing, nothing.
His hand, still clutching the leash of a whimpering soft-muzzled doberman.
Three drifters, they will say. Senseless.
           Thoughts and prayers, they will say.
A wake of grief rippling an entire coast, like a funeral pyre.

Did he notice in that frozen moment the flash from the gun, before
flesh ripped, before gasping dreams spilled forth, uncontained?

The blonde head of my son, hair thick and smelling of campfire.
If the shooter comes to the classroom, mom, you just
drop off the ledge and out the window.
You'll only break an ankle, maybe a leg, but probably not the whole thing.
Other wise, you have to charge him, throw a chair.
His large blue 12-year-old eyes contemplate the physics
of facing death.

A car backfires outside
I lurch my body over him.
            Geez, mom, it's just a car
            and anyway, I have homework to finish.

My anger and grief are steam rising off the back of a hard run horse
galloping, frantic and seeking familiar pasture.

Where is the safety, who will be the rescuer
in this hot, sticky, salty viscera?
Sirens light through the dark sky in the distance
Familiar, comforting, haunting.

These ghosts and I, sitting outside the fire, gazing in.
Our reflections dance, entwine, ensnarl
Eyes glittering, rapt in the distant shimmering heat.



©2016 Dacia Grayber

The light of his broken teeth

Two days ago, my son broke another one of his permanent teeth, this time while throwing himself with wild abandon into a backflip on the neighbor's trampoline. While reportedly almost a perfect execution, Zane went into the tuck a bit over-vigorously, and threw his knee into his face. There was a moment of confusion on what had happened, until he said he "felt a painful hole in his mouth" and noticed blood seeping through his pants. Apparently, the force of his patella was great enough to break his left lateral incisor about 1/3 of the way down, leaving the tooth temporarily lodged in his knee. The tooth came out, and with the intrepid scrutiny that is unique to a 9-year-old sibling, little brother quickly came up with the missing chunk. Boys, tooth shard, and bloody pants came home.

It is no accident that our pediatric dentist knows Zane by name and athletic incident, and I think perhaps might regard our family with a small grain of incredulity. The forthcoming emergency trip to the dentist for a broken tooth was Zane's second.

Only a year and a half ago my supernaturally strong bean-pole child was demonstrating his parkour ability to a rapt 3-year-old out at dinner. Zane jumped onto a street sign to show him a horizontal "flagpole"move, and either in a dramatic miscalculation of the pole's location, or a failed missive at flying, fell straight down, tooth first, 2-3ft onto the concrete. The horrific cracking "smack" that followed was enough to make the other firefighter/ paramedic friends I was with scream. My golden-haired child lay motionless on the ground, only long enough for me to envision the bloody broken horror I would find when I abandoned 20 years of medical training and leapt to him, quickly scooping him up in my arms, any principle of spinal immobilization gone. There was very little blood, his eyes welled with tears and refocused, and he gently spat a perfect triangular shard of his first adult tooth out into my hand. We were both shaken, but he had the words. "Mom, how did I miss?"

Which brings us to Tuesday morning, seated in the world's friendliest pediatric dentist office. While two visits is by far not "routine", the dentist did explain to Zane that one only has so many permanent teeth, and at the rate he was going, he'd be in dentures by college. This time the damage was more severe, the pulp nearly exposed, and a crown in his near future. Zane, true to his nature, did not miss a beat to ask if this was his opportunity for a gold crown with "just a small diamond, nothing too showy". (He was only half joking). He smiled at me, and then it hit me.

Both times, both broken teeth, his face has been nearly unscathed. No teeth gnashing at angles through lips, no bloody torn mouth. Just cleanly broken teeth. This is because in most everything physical Zane does, he does with a giant, wide, beaming smile. I was overcome with gratitude and amazement.

What a marvel, to be an almost 13-year-old boy, at the pit and precipice of teenage angst and turmoil, and plunge into the world without caution, with near-blind abandon. To dive at a flagpole, believing in your heart and soul that you would fly horizontally, that your sheer will and the assured love of gravity would hold you. To hurl yourself high into the air backwards, all fibers of your slight sinewy back and gangly legs contracting, gathering speed and force, eyes and mouth wide and sucking in the damp spring air. No disgrace, no embarrassment, no shame…. and no fear. Believing in your place in the world, penultimately present in the moment, even in the blazing pain of an unexpected trauma. And most of all, hours later, to beam that same, unfettered grin, albeit a little broken and crooked, and say, "Well mom, I almost got it. Next time."

What a marvel indeed.