Speaking About Families…
Over 70 family members from across the world took part in a Zoom meeting about our heritage (Picture is one of three screens of participants.
Those of you who know me, or have heard me speak, know that I grew up among 27 first cousins on my mother’s side of my family, and four additional cousins from my father’s side who were somehow folded into one big “family.” Last Sunday, two of our members from two different generations, arranged a Zoom meeting with almost 75 participants from all over the United States, Switzerland, and Israel. I believe an equal number were not able to join us this time.
None of the first generation who immigrated to America from Europe, or the second generation who were born here, are still alive, but their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are alive and procreating, sometimes in large, Orthodox Jewish families. We represent a spectrum of the Jewish world ranging from unconnected and unaffiliated to those with deep connections and beliefs.
I have been Zooming with book clubs and speaking with community groups since my novel, How to Make a Life, was published in October. Some readers, who assure me that they love the book, wonder why so many of the characters have bad things, even tragedies, occur to them. I’ve thought long and hard about that. One reason is that as a writer, I always want to have dramatic things happen to my characters, or the story drags or becomes, what we used to call Pollyanna…a character in an old fashioned series where everything was always rosy. But when I looked around at the faces, and the family lineage of the relatives on our Zoom Sunday, I realized that my novel described truth. Tragedies, illnesses and untimely deaths, happen in all families.
Among the family lines represented in my extended family there was, in no particular order: severe mental illness, suicide, gambling, alcohol and drug abuse, criminal behavior, horrible accidents, untimely death, chronic illness. My friends have similar stories in their families. What amazed me as I looked at the faces in the Zoom meeting, however, was the resiliency, the ability to overcome these terrible events and to go on and make a good life despite these obstacles.
That is definitely one of the themes in my novel, which covers 100 years and four generations of an immigrant family. It is possible, in the face of tragedy, pain and occasional despair, to go on and make a life full of joy and love, and to transmit that to the generations that come. That is what I saw on the faces of my family on the Zoom call. Joy, connection, love…and resiliency. It made me proud to be part of this family.
