Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2021 16:47:35 -0500
From: Avrim Lazar

Even for many of us whose parents did not directly live the Holocaust, our
parents silent fear and dread from the war became part of the air we breathed
everyday growing up.
My parents never acknowledged their deep fearfulness, always in the house never
discussed. My friends and I used to joke about nazis under the bed ....only
later in life I understood how well that described the emotional deep structure
of my childhood. I think we were driven to strive and excel partly to make our
parent feel safe.

I spent some time recently in a meditation retreat examining my own relationship
to death and realized that allowing myself to die would be a betrayal of my
parents need for me to survive. ....after that I gave myself permission to die (
no rush though) And I relaxed into my senior years.