Love Still Is

           Warning- this post contains difficult material. Stemming from the pains of the Holocaust and my struggles with understanding how it could have happened, and still happens. But it also contains light at the end. Hopefully this post won't throw you into depression. But I hope it throws you. I hope it changes how you see people and what is really right and wrong.

            The hardest part about reading in my holocaust class, besides the pain and joy of "suffering with" AKA "compassion", is when it brings up other things in my life. We talk about the dangers in assuming that the Nazis were genuinely evil people. When we assume that, we assume it can't happen again. And yet it does, all over the world and even in small ways in our own homes. So we see perpetrators in ways that try to normalize them, NOT EXCUSE them. But in ways that we can see similar tendencies in ourselves to avoid responsibility, to go with the flow, to leave authority unquestioned, or to control, blame, or dislike others to combat our own fears.  If we don't see the potential in us, we may be turning a blind eye to the hurt we cause others and not even see it until it is too late, or worse, we may never see it. We also study to see the potential to save, rescue, and stand up. But we aren't there yet in our class. That will be another post.

            Today I read about a policeman who shot only children after his partner shot the mothers. He could not stop the war, but he could shoot the children, was his attitude. He truly felt he was doing the right thing, principally. This is tough stuff, and like a holocaust victim, I'd rather spare you details that I have read and seen and heard. But the point is that he truly felt he was doing a good thing. He had convinced himself that since the mothers were gone, he was saving them from a motherless life. Part of me cannot excuse him in the least and feels he ought to burn in hell and hunger and thirst and never be satisfied. He cannot come back from that, cannot repent. This is because of something powerful that it brought up for me.

It brought up my last experiences with my very best friend in all my life. Garcelle, my service dog, was by my side for 6 years, 24/7, from the moment I got out of bed to the moment I fell asleep, that fuzzy red lab was by my side – even in school, and work, church, and the store…everywhere. She was part of me, spirit and body. We were one being. She got melanoma a year and a half ago and it killed us both. She eventually broke her leg where the tumors were crowding and we knew it would not heal and she couldn’t walk. I took her to the vet. He missed the vein and he had to do it again, only the second time, she struggled. The vet asked me to hold her down while she fought for her life. And then I carried her to her grave. I fell it the hole with her and sobbed. I still question occasionally if I did the right thing. I still question if I killed her or if I saved her. It haunts my dreams at night and even turns my daytime into a nightmare sometimes. I know this is different from Nazi killings, but this chapter played on all my fears, pointing out the similarities. Forgive me for needing to talk about that. That’s what this brought up for me. I still struggle to live with it and maybe I will for the rest of my life. Sometimes, in weak moments, I wonder if I were put on trial like that policeman if I would not deserve to be hanged. Maybe then it would be enough. No, it would not be enough to make up for what I did- a dark voice tells me.

But Hold on, keep reading. I have saving grace.

            I cannot live with that darkness. If there was ever anything I am learning from the Holocaust, it is that where there is the deepest depths of despair, a light ten times brighter will shine through. Here’s where the light is- my heart was only with her and God. I prayed. I begged. I suffered severely to make that decision I did. I sacrificed my desire for her to stay with me whatever the cost for her to not be in pain, and for me to be with her until the end. Even at the end, she was willing to give her life for me. She fought. She was willing to live with severe pain in order to stay with me. And in setting her free from the suffering in my arms, I gave up my life for her. I am no longer that girl I was before. That is love.

And that is what is different between me and that policeman. I did not make up this story of love so that I could feel better about what I was doing. The love was real and deep and I was connected to the death. The Nazi policeman felt he was doing something good for that child whom he shot- but for him, they were separate, individual, beings. He and that child were not connected by anything more than principles of wrong and right (however true they may or may not be). Gar and I were one and we gave each other our lives. Her death was not separate from mine, and we knew from the beginning that our lives were not separate either. We were connected at our very souls. Principle was not the voice that guided us then. Principles still failed the policeman. They might have failed me, too. And maybe that is the real difference between right and wrong... Love was the voice that guided us. Love still is.