My Records of Survival

All of us have a history/context for survival. This is mine and my intentions for survival during these times.

The only reason I am here today is because one of my ancestors “fought off the red scare”

That was the language used in the records that I found.

Apparently, he lost an eye in the “unprovoked” attack.

The person who took his eye likely saw things from a different perspective.

But we’ll never know because people who are reduced to a color don’t get a perspective.

After my ancestor survived he went to the Bahamas and married into a family who enslaved people. The records show that slavery was much less brutal in the Bahamas. At least, that’s the story his one eye saw and his one eye told.

I saw in the records the names of the people he “owned.”

One was named Charlotte and she was “sold” to another family when she was three years old.

Did Charlotte’s mother agree? That my ancestor “treated his slaves kindly”?

We’ll never know because people who are property don’t get a perspective

My grandfather, the one who descended from the one eyed ancestor, married my grandmother.

She came from a long line of Swiss Mennonites. When the state powers came to hunt and kill them, they didn’t even try to survive. They sang hymns instead, even when they were being burned alive. 

Apparently, this was so inspiring that it caused them to gain numerous converts.

To stop this, their captors began cutting out their tongues to prevent the singing.

Those of us that survived were allowed to keep our tongues, so long as we used them to tell these stories of persecution over and over and over.

It was a privilege after all, to have our records kept.

When the First Nations and Black and brown members of the community said, “We have some stories too. Can we tell them?”

We said, “Yes, yes, of course. You can tell yours too, just as soon as we recover all of our ancestor’s tongues.”

I left the Mennonites because I couldn’t find a queer to marry that wasn’t my cousin. So, I married a Russian, Jewish refugee who, when we met, was finding her way back to Judaism.

The records in Yad Vashem show that many of her relatives did not survive. The ones that did, only by narrow escape.

My tongue has become quite important these days as we sing Jewish melodies through multiple griefs and fears. It is hard to “ya-da-die” without a tongue. 

But, I don’t always use it for that.

After I make, what I’m sure is a really good point, my wife will say to me, “You’re such a smug bolichka. It makes me want to slap you.” (Bolichka means something like “white bread” in Russian). 

She never slaps me. 

“Okay, okay, try again. I won’t interrupt this time” I say. "I’ll listen! I promise, I’ll listen!”

My mind wanders and I start thinking about all this time spent trying to recover my ancestors eyes and tongues, so I can see and speak “The truth!” I think to myself “I know! What I really need is to learn how to listen!”

“Are you listening to me?” she says.

“No, but I was thinking about listening!”

“Try again” I say.

“It’s late” she says.

But usually, she tries again

and usually, I listen.

Let the records show that this, is how we survived