Remembering the Dead

It's been a few years since I visited Boston's Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, Paul Revere's House, Old North Church and the Copps Hill Burial Grounds. I first visited the cemetery as a grade-schooler on a field trip from New York. We made etchings by rubbing butcher paper on the centuries-old tombstones, and I remember being in awe thinking of the families who had stood where I knelt, burying their loved ones.

Death has brushed close many times since that first encounter: I've lost friends to the ravages of AIDS and the painful march of cancer. All four grandparents have died, two of them while very much a part of my daily life. I've stood helplessly by as friends have buried husbands and sons, and just a few months ago photographed my cousin's burial with full military honors (color guard, playing of Taps, 21-gun salute) at Arlington National Cemetery.

I do not fear death, although I have a strong, albeit futile, sense of how I'd like to pass, knowing from all that I've seen how unlikely it is that I'll get control over that outcome. I do, however, fear allowing my life to pass without making a mark on the world. This burning desire to have a positive impact (less than leaving a legacy, as motivates some) has been recently fueled by a less-than fulfilling work life and by reading too many books about those who have done so much. Three Cups of Tea, Mountains Beyond Mountains, even Into the Wild with it's less than inspiring ending have intensified my sense that life is passing too quickly and I must hurry and make something of it all.

It was in this frame of mind that I happened upon the New England Holocaust Memorial just after exiting the T at the Haymarket stop. Traveling as I was the day before 9/11, and being a New Yorker, I suppose it's not surprising that when I approached the tall glass towers of the memorial I immediately thought it must be a tribute to the terrorist attack of 2001.

Even the steam vents blowing up smoke in the midday heat and humidity made me think of Ground Zero. But as soon as I entered the memorial by stepping on the black granite stone path, across carvings of names like "Auschwitz," I realized I was entering sacred ground and the recollection of terror of another era.

Six glass towers, each 54-feet tall, bear six-million numbers to recall those tattooed onto the arms of those who died in the Nazi death camps.

Personal statements by survivors and witnesses also testify to the horror of what took place. I've included one here, to the right, and a photo of it below.

Writing in my notebook as I rode the subway to the airport, my simple response was this:

Glass standing tall, reflecting the financial towers nearby. I start to walk through, wondering why there is steam coming up from the ground, through the grates in each section. Poor planning? Warmth for winter tourists? Reminds me of Ground Zero.

Looking more closely I see digits etched into the glass. In white. Then words, a memory, etched in black. A woman remembers seeing her sister shot and killed. Faces of other visitors, like me, with tears in their eyes are also reflected on top of the words, on top of the numbers, on top of the reflected buildings all in this tall glass.

No, it's not a memorial for the World Trade Centers collapse eight years ago.

Those memorials, breathing the grief that is still so fresh, will be re-visited tomorrow, Friday, 9/11/09.

No, it's a reminder of the six-million who died during the Holocaust many decades before. And the grief of that memory suddenly feels as personal, as close, as the loss of DJ and Marian, Tommy and Hazel, Carl and Pop and Aunch and Corrado and so many in my life.

May I take life and run, fly, L I V E fully. Anything less is tragic and wasteful. Forgive me. Inspire me.