I was born in Brooklyn and lived adjacent to a large Jewish community. From time to time as a child I would see a number tattooed on someone's arm and wonder what it was for. Years later I would learn what they meant. I would learn much more than I would ever want to know.

Hatred to me is an emotion that somehow slipped through our evolutionary cycle; snuck in when it wasn't supposed to and remained with us as we "evolved" into what we are now. It was an emotion designed to propel us IN the direction of great danger in the hopes of surviving when running away was not an option. It's a pre-emptive strike; a desperate last effort to continue.

It has no place in real life, in human interaction, because it resolves no issue. It improves no one's position. Its purpose is to destroy before being destroyed and thus when that threat, when that type of threat no longer exists in a form we can recognize - it ceases to be of any value.

And yet, it lingers.

Years later I came across a man in LA who was lost in the years of WW II and the camps. A man in a suit, walking past you, who would never have been noticed - except for the ornate mirror he carried with him, always. His link to those left behind. I wrote about it in, The Mirror Man.

I am never far from my memory of him and his story.

It's sad what you went through, Linda. Sad but all too common. Please continue to do what you do. 🦄💚