I've been thinking
about you a lot lately. Still missing you. Still miss talking to you. Still
missing family parties at your place. It’s Apple Butter Day weekend, and you
are not here. In fact, mom’s been ill so much lately, she didn’t even go. I’m
still in Florida and busy with too many classes, and it’s crazy that my side of
the family wasn’t even represented at Apple Butter Day this year.
Since I started writing
you these letters three years ago, I’ve been telling you about the darkness
falling in the world nowadays, the darkness in America that’s emerging again. I
keep hoping that someday there will be a shift, and there won’t be that much
evil to share.
2018 and migrant
children are in cages in America.
October 2018 and, along
with ten other victims, a 97-year-old woman was gunned down while worshipping
in her synagogue. Here, in an American city. While she wasn't a Holocaust
Survivor as first reported, she was alive during that terrible time, and she
survived and grew and loved and lived until finally taken too soon by hate.
Uncle David, you said
wherever we go, God is there. And I know He is. But sometimes when I read the
headlines or scroll down my Facebook news, it’s hard to remember His love and
goodness. I don’t see how people can be so horrible, hateful, horrid.
November is here again.
Four years ago, I wrote that “a Thing of Beauty is combining gratitude with
seeing things in a new way and with authenticity; it’s living in the moment and
acknowledging what is (good and bad) and reinventing what life gives us.” And now,
more than ever, we need to look for a Thing of Beauty. Something that we can
reimagine as beautiful, an act of kindness, something we're thankful for. In
the midst of the violence, the fighting, the political antics, and the hate
that we are reminded of every day in the media, we must find the beauty, the
wonder, the truth. And so this year, I will again express a Thing of Beauty, but
I will also share a quote or poem to combat white supremacy and hate in all its
forms.
“It’s utterly
impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and
death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the
approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of
millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything
will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and
tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my
ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to realize them!" Anne
Frank
“It’s difficult in times like these: ideals,
dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality.
It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and
impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything,
that people are truly good at heart.” Anne Frank
“I don’t think of all
the misery but of the beauty that still remains.” Anne Frank
If Anne could still see
beauty while in hiding for two years, then I can find it too. Today and every
day this month, I will search for beauty, love, kindness, gratitude, goodness…..
Love, Rach
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