The Things We Cannot Say

by Kelly Rimmer

“You’re doing a good job, Momma. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Hatred was like some otherworldly beast, seeded in small acts of violence and oppression against our Jewish citizens, growing in strength as the power-hungry fed it with rhetoric and propaganda.

To destabilize a group of people is not at all difficult, not if you are willing to be cruel enough. You simply knock out the foundations, and a natural consequence is that the rest begins to tumble.

Hatred spreads—it doesn’t burn out with time. Someone needs to stand up and stop it.

Life has a way of reminding you that you are at the mercy of chance, and that even well-thought-out plans can turn to chaos in an instant.

For a crime as innocent as handing a Jewish person a glass of water, an entire family would now be slaughtered.

“Hitler wants land and power, and it is much easier to convince an army to die for you when you have an enemy to fight,” Father said, quite gently. “And the Jews make for an easy enemy, because people will always hate what is different.”

I had long since convinced myself that no news was better than bad news, but that was when I had no chance of accessing any.

“Alina, you know I’ll always find you? Promise me you know that. I don’t know what’s ahead of us—but when we’re apart, there’s only one thing on my mind, and that’s getting back to my girl.”

“One day, I will take you away from here,” he whispered, “One day, we will go someplace safe—someplace peaceful. One day, when you’re my wife, we will have the nicest house in the nicest street and the cutest children in the town and everyone will say, ‘Look at Tomasz and Alina, childhood sweethearts, now growing old together.’ You’re going to be one of those women who ages well. I can see it now—even when you’re an old babcia you’ll be breathtaking and I won’t be able to keep my eyes or my hands off you.”

I can’t even begin to understand the kind of resilience my grandparents must have possessed to survive that war, and remain gentle in spirit the way they did.

All I want in this world is to be a man worthy of a woman like you.

“We were made for each other, and everything else in the world will just have to figure itself out, because we are going to be together. I love you.”

“Don’t,” I said, firmly but softly. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s too dangerous. Loving you is dangerous now, and I couldn’t stop that even if I tried. Your calling is my calling. We do this together, because what do you always say to me?” “We are meant to be together,” he whispered, but his gaze was serious.

“Alina, the darkness still frightens you? Death at the hands of Nazis for helping your outlaw boyfriend barely makes you blink, but climbing down a ladder makes you tremble? What nonsense, child.”

I know that Wade loves me, and I know that I love Wade. Sometimes I also kind of hate him, but mostly, I love him. That’s marriage sometimes. That’s just the way it is; the years can’t all be kind, because life isn’t always kind.

I don’t want you to think that becoming a mom means your entire existence has to revolve around your kids and partner.

“Home is not the country we stand in—it’s us. Home is the future we have been planning and dreaming of. We can build it anywhere.

“In these past few years, you’ve lived and breathed our family. You’re a wonderful wife. A brilliant mother. But… Ally…” He draws in another soft breath, then his gaze grows pleading. “As great as that is, that’s not all you wanted to be, honey. I know this trip is for Babcia. But… I also… I kind of hope it’s also for you. A chance for you to drop some of the heaviness of our family life and for me to catch it, so you can pick up something else too. I’ve been doing some thinking since we talked the other night. Never for a second of our life together have you asked me to put my stuff second. Well, this week I want you to know what that feels like, so you can know that I do appreciate it. Maybe…we can figure all of this out and share the load of it better one day. I don’t know what that looks like, or how we do it, but I want to be a better husband for you.

My daughter actually thinks I’m inspirational. All I’ve done is caught a damned plane by myself, and Callie thinks that’s amazing. There’s something both exciting and depressing about that.

What happens when stories like theirs are lost? What happens when there’s no one left to pass your experience on to, or you just can’t bring yourself to share it?

“We will always find our way back to each other, Alina,” he breathed, when we broke apart. “Our love is bigger than this war—I promise you that.”

“Sometimes, if you want something badly enough, you have to smash the damn door down.”

I think about the resentment I feel toward Wade—that awful feeling that’s muddled up with guilt and confusion because I’m in this role where I’m somehow the domestic kingpin of our family, but not at all the equal financial provider I always assumed I’d be—somehow both a reluctant dependent and the family chief operations officer.

“It is the only truth I live by. Everything else is gone. We are made for each other…meant to be together. It doesn’t matter what happens in this life or the next, Alina. We’ll always find our way back to each other.”

I just have this feeling that whether you go home today or tomorrow, the outcome is probably the same. You’re going to slot right back into your life and carry them all, and a week or two from now, everything will be back the way it was. And when you look back at this amazing trip, all you’ll have to remember are the failures.

This moment is an investment in myself. I’m giving myself permission to make a memory that benefits no one but me. I love being a mother, and I love being a wife. I even love being a daughter and a granddaughter. But as I stand here on the mountaintop, I’m not any of those things. I am simply Alice, and for one breathtaking moment, I’m completely present.

“War breaks us down to nothing more than our most selfish will to survive—but when we rise above that instinct, miracles can still happen.

I have a great love just like Babcia’s great love—and this man is it. It’s not clean and simple, because our lives are not clean and simple—and it’s harder day-to-day to keep that love in our focus, because we have so much else to manage. But right now—just for a moment—the static of managing our kids and his career and the dynamics of our home life has completely cleared, and my love for Wade surges until it’s all I can think about.

I knew with absolute certainty that small problems in a country can become immense tragedies when left unchecked. It started small in Germany. It even started small in Poland, long before the occupation. It started with a small group of people harassing and vandalizing and desecrating, and it ended with trainloads of my countrymen shipped to furnaces and dumped into a river.

Life has a way of shattering our expectations, of leaving our hopes in pieces without explanation. But when there’s love in a family, the fragments left behind from our shattered dreams can always be pulled together again, even if the end result is a mosaic.

I always thought my family needed 100 percent of my energy—but I’m learning that I can give them the full focus of my love and take the time to nurture other things that matter to me too. I’m even busier these days, but the curious thing is that I feel much less exhausted.

Our family life is never going to be easy, but that can’t stop any one of us from reaching for our dreams. It cost our ancestors too damned much for us to have this life—the best thing we can do to honor them is to live it to its fullest.