Neat Numbers and Flowers on the Walls

When my grandmother was in Auschwitz, she got a pretty tattoo. I know I shared this story before but it one I keep going back to, the one I need to hear again and again and maybe you do too. It is the most inspiring and relevant story she told me and if the 8 million instagram views mean anything, it is pretty relevant to you too.

We were sitting and talking, and I am not sure how it came up, but we were looking at her tattoo and she said, “look how nice and neat they are.” My mother and I looked at each other and laughed. My grandmother was… how shall I say this? Well, maybe how I said it to her.

“Bobby! You were in Auschwitz! How could you be so vain?”

My grandmother liked looking good. While she did lecture me on plastic surgery, (so-and-so died from that! Do not ever do it! The stupid things people risk their lives for) and Botox (can’t a woman age gracefully?) she would also ‘spend countless hours and dozens of magazine cut outs until her wig looked the way she wanted it to. She refused to dry clean her blouses and ironed it herself (at 95 years old) because no one did it as well as she did. She took her orthopedic shoes to the shoemaker and upgraded them with a black velvet bow with a pearl in the center of it (they looked fantastic).

“Now is one thing,” I said. “But in Auschwitz? Even then you cared how you looked?”

I thought of the 18-year-old girl she was. Standing on line a death camp to get a number tattooed on her arms so the Nazis can keep track of her death. She was covered in lice. She saw people die from hunger and exhaustion every day. She was tortured and humiliated. And she risked her life to get on the line of the tattooist who was writing neater numbers. So yes, I wanted to know how she could be so vain in a time like that.

She laughed. She always laughed at herself. We laughed with her.

Then she turned serious, and I will never forget the smile she gave me. It was full of conviction, a little sadness but mostly peace.

“It wasn’t vanity,” she said. “I knew I was going to survive, and I didn’t want big sloppy numbers on my arm for the rest of my life.”

Sometimes it is the little things that reaffirm life.

She chose those little things over and over again. Through the Holocaust and through the pain and trauma she lived with all her years after. In Auschwitz, she would sneak out in the middle of the night to wash her body with lye. She would wash the rags of the frail girl who couldn’t do it for herself. She refused to eat the crumbs off the floor because she knew her dignity was worth more than the crumbs. She would drop the bullets was washing to the bottom of the barrel so she could do her own small thing to sabotage the Nazi’s war efforts. She did all these small things because they made her hold on to her hope that things wouldn’t always be like this. That things would get better. That she would survive this. When she was finally liberated, the first thing she saw was wildflowers. She said she felt like God was telling her what she was always trying to tell herself, there’s hope for the future; there are still beautiful little things in this world for you.

I remember when my little sister was two years old and wailing over some indignity, (probably being taken out of the bath before she wanted to come out). She laid on her bed, wrapped in her towel, crying and crying. Finally, she calmed down. Through her hiccupped sighs, she looked at the wallpaper and said, “at least I have flowers on my walls.”

I often feel guilty enjoying myself or being ok when other people are suffering. It took me time to learn that suffering for someone else, doesn’t actually help them but maybe makes me feel like I am helping and then distracts me from doing the things that truly do help them. Big things are happening. Big things that I cannot control. But my grandmother taught me that sometimes it is the little things that reaffirm life. Sometimes it is washing the rags of the frail girl in Auschwitz. Sometimes it is getting neat death camp numbers on your arm. Sometimes its dancing. Sometimes it is buying a nice blue cardigan that matches your eyes. Sometimes it’s wearing your blouse just the way you like it. Sometimes it is a nice hairstyle. Because those things show life still matters to you. Sometimes the most stubborn, courageous thing you can do is a choose hope. Sometimes the biggest thing you can do is to enjoy something small. What are your pretty numbers?

Things are tough but spring is coming, at least we have flowers on our walls.

That is a comfort for me and I hope it can be a comfort for you too.