They Went Left

by Monica Hesse

We have nothing. We weigh nothing, we feel nothing, we existed on nothing, for years.

Because everyone else: Papa, Mama, Baba Rose, beautiful Aunt Maja—all of them, all of them, as the population of Sosnowiec was devastated—they went left.

No amount of warm poultices or aspirin powder can ever fix pain when it comes from ghosts.

“Today I am choosing to love the person in front of me. Do you understand? Because he’s here, I’m here, and we’re ready to not be lonely together. Chaim is a good man. I won’t let another wedding pass me by.”

If my options were never being able to find my brother, or knowing for sure that something terrible had happened to him, which would I choose? What’s the line between the amount of information that brings hope and the amount that brings despair? Do you choose the comfort of fantasy? Or do you choose real pain?

Do those count as happy last times? I don’t know. The absence of pain is not the same as the presence of happiness.

think we must find miracles where we can. We must love the people in front of us. We must forgive ourselves for the things we did to survive. The things we broke. The things that broke us.