One month

I no longer think about her every moment. I no longer walk around in a daze. I no longer look like a train wreck. But....the world is moving on around me and I need to stop.

30 years. 30 years of hugs, unconditional love, kisses, affection. I no longer think of her every day like I used to. Just images here and there. Her smile. Her upcountry accent. Her fingers, bent by men who had no right to call themselves men. Her cooking. Her blue eyes. Her presence. Her apartment. Her little metal box which was inscribed "from the "night school" of survivors, 1949." I don't think about those last months except for one moment: When she was laying in bed and talking. She hardly ever talked about the camps or the deportation. But that day, she did. She told me how, in the village where she was born and lived her whole life, they showed up and rounded up all the Jews. Put them on the trains. And as the Jews were prodded with machine guns, their so-called neighbors and friends gathered around on both sides and cheered. They threw rotten eggs. They cackled. And then she looked at me, raised a finger and said "But I don't hate them. And I don't hate Christians." Because that's who she was.

And the kids she spent her life doting on got together with their dipshit father and decided to rob her blind as she lay dying. Classy huh?

One month. I need that month so I can go away. So I can be in a place where no one else is. So I can cry and scream and throw things. So I can get all that out of my system and then lay back, close my eyes and dream of her.