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7
She was in every single one. “Look,
Mom, there I am! And here! I’m in
this one, too!” It was to no avail,
as her mother kept complaining
and blaming her, unable to see her
daughter in the images.
When she woke up, my colleague
instantly knew what her dream
meant.
“It encapsulated the essence of
my relationship with my mother,”
she told me. “She’s never been able
to see me. And I’ve always tried to
comfort her.”
To be seen by those we love
and those we’re dependent on —
be they parents, grandparents,
teachers, caregivers, officials with
power over us — is essential to our
sense of self and self-worth.
Despite losing his entire family
during the Holocaust, or perhaps
because of it, my father was a
master at seeing people, listening
to them wholeheartedly, making
each of them feel special and loved.
My brother’s daughter Miriam
fondly remembers early mornings
they spent together.
“Every time we would visit,
I would try to wake up before
Nagypapa,” she said. “Yet every
single morning, when I tiptoed
out into the kitchen, he would
be sitting in his white leather
armchair, reading the paper. He
would just smile and hand me the
comics. After reading, we would
walk out into the orchard and pick
the best-looking oranges and tangerines
in order to make freshly
squeezed juice for the family. I
loved spending mornings with
Nagypapa, reading and making
orange juice, because they were
our special time together.”
My daughter Sophie’s story
of her grandfather’s four kisses
perfectly illustrates the point.
“Grandpa would pick us up at
the airport and the minute he
saw us, he smiled and gave each
of us hugs and kisses,” she said.
“Finally he would turn to me.
‘Sophieka! How many kisses’
‘Four!’ I answered enthusiastically,
and Grandpa would kiss me
on my cheeks, two on one, two on
the other.”
Every visit, he would ask the
same question and she would
always have the same response.
“Then one day when Grandpa
asked, ‘Sophieka, how many kisses
today’ I thought for a moment
and replied, ‘Three!’” Sophie said.
“Grandpa looked at me with his
warm twinkle in the eye, smiled
and said, ‘That’s not enough!’ as he
began to give me lots more. Every
time I relive that story I smile.
My grandpa was a good grandpa
who loved everyone so much and
wasn’t afraid to show it.”
Marta Fuchs, a marriage and
family therapist and librarian, is
the author of “Legacy of Rescue: A
Daughter’s Tribute” (available on
amazon.com and blurb.com) and
co-author with her brother Henry
of the multigenerational extended
family memoir “Fragments of a
Family: Remembering Hungary,
the Holocaust, and Emigration to
a New World.”
Northwest Jewish Family 2013–2014