Three Strikes FOR Roe vs. Wade

 We knew it was coming. But knowing that a tsunami is approaching and witnessing your house being swept away as it hits is like comparing a mosquito bite to a gunshot wound.  As everyone knows by now, the waves have come crashing down. But we refuse to drown. We shall gain higher ground and perspective, We have to! The fight to reclaim our land is far from over 

Progressive pundits are all over the news--at least on the news channels I periodically listen to-- with their wild laments. But they're preaching to the choir, as it were, making no effort to stress what I think is the most decisive argument supporting the legalization of abortion. That is the subject of my Strike One for Roe vs. Wade.

Strike One: Abortion is not murder!

The argument that a fetus is already a human being because it has the full genetic endowment of a human being is false, scientifically false. A human being is always the product--from birth to death--of the interplay between genes and environment. Can you imagine a human being without the experience and development that only an environment--one's exposure to the world and its laws--provides? Such a life would have to be confined to a lab. Life in a petri dish may be life, but not human life. A full set of human chromosomes raised in this fashion would be a Frankenstein, not a human being. Chromosomes are only half the story; human life begins when a fetus meets the environment, at birth.

The womb is an incubator in which a potential human being becomes an actual human being at birth.

A fetus is not a child! Abortion is not murder! 

Termination of pregnancy is not to be taken lightly, however; the fetus does indeed have the potential of becoming a human being. Equating abortion with murder, however, is like trying to prosecute a soldier for a war crime in a conflict that hasn't yet, or might never take place.

I certainly agree that women have the right to control their own bodies. But when one speaks of a woman's right to choose, abortion opponents hear a woman's right to commit murder. That abortion is not murder, which I hope I have demonstrated, takes the wind out of the sail of a very dark ship that is menacing us all. It will continue to be a menace unless we are convinced that the right to choose has nothing to do with the right to murder.  This must become the central argument of those who support the right to abortion; the pseudo-science that a fetus is a human being must be vociferously debunked.

Strike Two: Inordinate effect on the poor

Lower-income persons living in red states will have extra hurdles to obtain abortions in states where abortion is still legal. A poor person living in the middle of Texas, for instance, might not be able to afford travel expenses. Comprehensive family planning services are part of health care, and limiting health care for persons who need it most is immoral.

If, for instance, sickle cell treatment was suddenly not covered by government-backed insurance, many who suffer from sickle cell disease would be left in the lurch. Since comprehensive family planning is part of health care, elimination of coverage for abortion is no different.

Do so-called 'pro-lifers' ever consider the effect abolishing abortion in red states will have on the poor? If they did, they are callous; if they didn't, failure to thinks things over is equally callous.

I remember reading about a Republican legislator, firmly opposed to abortion, who secretly financed the abortion of his pregnant mistress. He should be ashamed.

The poor don't have much of a voice in this country. Legislators of both parties, but especially Republican, trample over their needs. 

A Woman's Right to Choose--I agree with this statement, but we must remember that when an opponent of abortion hears this, she interprets it to mean A Woman's Right to Choose...Murder. Those who believe, as I do, that abortion should be an integral part of health care, must make it clear first of all that abortion, for reasons explained in this essay,  is not murder. First assert the morality of abortion, then assert a woman's right to choose. Only if one realizes that abortion is not murder does the advocacy of a woman's right thereto make sense. 

Strike Three

Republicans generally support the rich through tax cuts, and refuse to fund just about all social programs for the poor and middle class. In their rejection of the right to abortion, Republicans, however,  are veritable spendthrifts. The price of an abortion ranges from about 300 hundred to one thousand dollars.  The average cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 is over $233,000! In addition, the average cost of having a baby is over $13,900. The government would continue to reap enormous savings, if abortion were legal. 

Although there might be many individual acts of supporting a woman and help caring for an unwanted child, it is a generally true that once a baby is born, support stops. For instance, in the 14 red states whose trigger laws against abortion are going into effect as I write this, are the least likely states to fund programs that help young families--day care, WIC, paid parental leave, health care, etc. 

Anti-abortionists might celebrate (in the abstract) forcing women to bear a pregnancy against their will; once the baby is born, however, the celebration is over and the mother and child are left largely to their own devices.

The United States, in general, fosters charity to cover the gaps in social programs. This charity, however, is grossly inadequate; as the Europeans say, we need justice, not charity. Just social programs reach many more families than charity does.  Reliance on charity to cover funding shortfalls is a further example of legislative--that is, Republican--failure. You don't have to travel far in America to see the wreckage unregulated capitalism has caused.

Summary: Abortion is not murder! Gently explain why it isn't to those who dogmatically think otherwise. As the bible teaches, choose life. The right to abortion is choosing life. The life and well-being of women is what is at stake.

There is enough suffering in this world/ We should never deliberately and unnecessarily increase suffering. Banning abortion--even when the life of the mother is at stake or in the cases of rape--considerably adds to human suffering.

The majority of Americans support the right to abortion. What to do? Vote!

Where did all the gods go?

 Well, they haven't vanished completely. But they've gotten considerably dimmer. What was bright before is well on its way to invisibility. 

I was shocked.

What do I mean by this Twilight of the Gods? I will explain. My son lives about 35 miles from our house. His house is very close to the Shiva-Vishnu Temple of Goddard, Maryland. We haven't been to the temple since the outbreak of the Covid epidemic, over two years ago. My son invited us over to celebrate Fathers Day. The temple sells South Indian food, and we decided to pick up several orders of rice-based dishes. One of the guests invited to our celebration is of Indian origen, my wife, Nirmala, is of Indian origen as well, and both my son and I love Indian food.

Was there a religious element to our visit? We go to the temple rarely, often to pick up food or listen to one of the temple's periodic concerts of South Indian classical music, (carnatic music) of which we are both true devotees.) The first thing we do upon arrival, however, is visit the sanctuary on the second floor. This is an immense room in which many shrines are located, each of which contains a statue of a Hindu deity. They are all there, Subramaniyan with his vel. or sword, which destroys ignorance; the reclining Vishnu, Sri Venkateshwara, Krishna, Ganesh, etc etc.

I am a failure as an atheist, but it comes close. I believe the gods do not dwell 'out there' but inside the mind. I'm at home with any religion's symbols, and am at home with atheists as well.

We have visited the sanctuary many times over the years, but this time the view was markedly different. I remember how everything appeared during our many visits; the gods stood proudly and distinctly in their altars and were clearly visible. Now it was as if the lights had been turned off. I could still see devotees circumnavigating the altar of Ganesh, but their features had become indistinct and dusky, When I looked at some of the statues, I saw big black blobs where faces should be.

The difference between this dim visit and the previous bright ones really struck me hard. My loss of vision has been gradual--and relentless. Over the past few years, I have become just about blind in the right eye, with continuing loss of vision in the left.

The condition I have is called age-related macular degeneration. The macula is the area of the retina responsible for central vision. It is a common condition, affecting about 11 million persons. There are two types, early, or dry AMD or wet, or late AMD. I, unfortunately, have wet AMD, the worst kind,  in both eyes. I receive periodic injections of medicine in each eye, but the disease has progressed nevertheless.

I am an avid reader and reading is becoming difficult. I read in bright light with an illuminated magnifying glass. My brain does its best to make sense of the words, often by guessing. For instance, rarer words, such as 'redolent' I may misread as 'resonant', When a word doesn't make sense in context, I stare and stare at it, often to no avail.

The loss of vision has been gradual and relentless. The disappearing gods brought my increasing vision loss somberly to 'light.'

A devout Hindu acquaintance of mine, as he lay dying, told his family that it was 'time for him to go inward.' Well, I'm already an inward person--my sensitivity to music attests to that. I still need ongoing contact with the outer world, for which vision is almost essential. I'm not going to go blind without a fight!

There's still a lot that can be done. Time to switch, for instance, to large print books and audio books. Acceptance of what I cannot change is also a great help. I have no complaints.

The gods, by the way, haven't really gone away. My third eye sees them more clearly than ever. I expressed this in a recent poem entitled, the blind poet, which first appeared in The Loch Raven Review:

the blind poet

is satisfied
one out of three
how can vision
lack in sight while
the third eyes sees

Before I lose vision--and the rest of my faculties--I intend to see many things and befriend many people.

 Are you growing old as well? Do you also have difficulties? Friends, I hear you.

Desultory Diary Number 43: The Supernova of Betelgeuse (Cancer Journal, Continued)

 I made it! I actually made it to the top step! It took me a bit more effort than usual; my heart was beating faster, and I was a little bit--just a wee bit--out of breath. I had just come back from my daily radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Sure I am a lot more tired now than before, but I'm a lot more happy about little things--like making it to the top of the stairs.

Oops! The shopping bag, which contained the stuff I brought back from the hospital, such as my slippers and my Covid mask, broke just as I reached the next to the last step. I climbed to the landing and leaned down to pick up the bag and it broke again. And again. Was I too weak to lift it? I noticed that I fell into the wall, as I tried to retrieve the bag again. My ability to balance had deteriorated, no doubt about that--but I wasn't going to let that get me down. I stepped down to the next to the last step, and, facing the top of the stairs, I made one more valiant attempt to pick up the shopping bag.

WHOOSH!!

My poor balance did get me down--fast. I soon found myself at the bottom of the stairs, unable to move. I had fallen down the entire flight of stairs--backwards.

About halfway down, the left side of my head and body slammed into the banister posts. (More to say about this later). Thereafter, my body twisted and I soon found myself face down on the floor with my legs located a few steps above. My legs were crossed. I just lay there for a while trying in vain to untwist my legs. 

Nirmala was in the back yard reading. I know she couldn't hear me, but I cried out to her anyway. We had workers in our house at the time--we had a flood on my first day of treatment, but that's another story. They heard me and came to my aid. They brought a chair and sat me on it. I remember saying clearly, "Gracias por levantarme." Otherwise, I was quite confused. They got Nirmala, who made sure there was no major injury.

I was damn lucky. I could have broken my neck. I had fallen as passively as a puppet; perhaps this passivity is what saved me.

When I struck my head against the posts with considerable force, I saw 'stars,' or at least one huge stellar explosion. Though it lasted only a few seconds, the exploding star was very luminous indeed. I undoubtedly suffered a mild concussion.

At this time of confusion, luminous insights didn't flash up like RKO searchlights examining the sky over Los Angeles. I remember, however, saying to myself over and over, "My own inner Betelgeuse just went supernova inside my head!" Just what did I mean by that?

Betelgeuse, as you may know, is a giant red star in the constellation of Orion; the reddish star is one of the brightest of all. Stars, like our Sun, usually convert hydrogen into helium, like our Sun has been doing over 4 billion years and will continue to do so for over 4 billion more. But giant stars have shorter lives. If a star is ten times or more massive than our sun--and Betelgeuse is much more massive than that--it is destined, cosmically speaking, to be short-lived. Betelgeuse has already used up all its hydrogen and it is now fusing helium into heavier elements, in order to counter the force of gravity with an equal centripetal force of its own. Once iron, a very stable element  is reached, however, fusion stops and the star collapses under its own gravity. The resultant explosion is called a supernova. The luminosity of a supernova is at first often brighter than the entire galaxy in which it is located. Then it fades into the utter darkness of a black hole.

Betelgeuse has about 100,000 years left, a cosmic wink. 

Such were the thoughts flashing through my shaken brain as I sat in the chair, holding an ice pack to my left temple. My cerebral supernova lasted only a few seconds.

The next day I had a black eye, several bruises, and a swollen, possibly broken, big toe on my right side--how I got that I don't know. I was sore all over, especially in the region of my left scapula.

For the next few days, I walked with a cane. What was most distressing is that I was unable to get out of bed. Nirmala had to push and or lift me--not an easy task--so that I could make it to the bathroom in time.

Today, three days later, I am a lot better. Just what I needed, a mild concussion!

Am I complaining? Not at all. I am delighted that my injuries weren't more severe. Yes, holding on tightly to the the banister when I walk up the stairs, I've become weaker and older; yet stronger and wiser as well.

Twelve radiation treatments completed, sixteen more to go!

"See You on the Other Side," a painting by the late Matthew Wong

 

                                       "See You on the Other Side" by Matthew Wong

1.

In a recent edition of the New Yorker, Raffi Khatchadourian wrote a profile on the painter Matthew Wong, with the subtitle, "How a self-taught artist become one of the most celebrated painters of his generation." Opposite the first page was a full-page reproduction of the above painting. My eyes bulged; I was transfixed, "This painter is the new van Gogh" I delightedly exclaimed." (The influence of Matisse is obvious as well, but the spirit of the painting brings van Gogh to mind. 

The painting evokes a state of extreme isolation. It portrays a desperate hope, a hope that, without wishful thinking, is not to be realized in this life nor in the next. Let us examine this painting.

.

Like Matisse, the use of color is primary. The painting is two-dimensional; the beholder has to supply depth by context--that is, it is obvious that the 'other side' is farther away than the brown area in the foreground.

Matisse uses the same technique; color is not decorative, the use of color is all. 

There is a great beauty here. The symmetry of the objects, such as the brilliant red bird in the foreground balancing the green mountain on the other side; the choice and balance of colors is very aesthetically pleasing to the eye. But  this beauty is deceiving; there is no warm Matisse-like celebration of life here. We now turn to a description of the subject of the painting, one of near-complete desolation. 

There is a central figure in the painting, the 'protagonist,' standing on a hill, with his back to the onlooker. With his arms, the source of action, immobile at his side, he seems to be looking at a little hut on the others side. This faded blue figure--the color of nobility-- is the only figure in the painting that seems to be situated in shade. Hardly visible, the hut has an open door. Other than the protagonist, there is no fellow human being in the painting, which is as devoid of life as the depths of empty space.

Don't be fooled by the red bird. In this interpretation, it is representative of the protagonist's imagination, the protagonist's spirit, the protagonist's soul. The fictive bird can fly over the abyss, but the protagonist always remains locked inside his body, on the ground. It is a representation of wishful thinking with imagination's brilliant wings.

The 'sea' that separates this side from the other is white, which, like ice, reflects all light into space. It is an abyss; it is completely unknown territory.  No heaven here.  The protagonist seems to have no choice other than to jump into the abyss, as a way to end he pain of his existence. 

The protagonist stands with his back facing away from a brown hill. It is brown, the color of decay. Perhaps it represents earthly life, with which the protagonist has no contact. It is interesting that the hill is decorated with a Matisse-like pattern of branches and leaves. The leaves are white, the color of the abyss, perhaps indicating that we don't even know what leaves truly are. All phenomena are thus 'controlled hallucinations'--our best guess of what is really there. Wong seems to be telling us that we will never know Kant's 'Thing in Itself,' and he is right. What is under our noses is just as mysterious as the abyss, empty space.

I interpret the little hut, the almost nothing on the other side which the protagonist imagines will bring salvation, to be a product of wishful thinking. In any case, the green vegetation on the other side seems to be roaring down the mountain like a huge waterfall, which will soon overwhelm the hut and  sweep it away.

The other side is thus completely impersonal.

In the upper left is the deep blue of a Lethe-like lake. Above it is a gray sky, with an interstitial pattern that reminds me of the dance of electrons. Nature is thus impersonal, and completely indifferent to the fate of her creatures, which have evolved according to her mysterious laws. The 'almost' nothing, hope-hut is really nothing at all.

It seems that the only way out for the protagonist, the only way to end his extreme existential pain, is to jump into the abyss, to enter 'the bourne from which no traveler retuned.' It seems to be the entrance to total oblivion.

Wong jumped into that oblivion at the age of thirty-five. What could have helped him?

2,

A very difficult question. Matthew Wong suffered from severe social isolation. He was later diagnosed as being autistic. The pain of his troubles is evident in his paintings. He painted obsessively; not painting is pain, he once said. Without the respite of hard work, demons possessed him. Later on, when he became more successful, ambition--an attempt to prove he was a human being by means of being a superior artist--eventually failed.

We humans, who have remained psychologically and physically stable over the past 100,000 years, evolved in groups. We achieve and maintain our sense of identity through interaction with others.

Such a severe inability to connect as Matthew's was is indeed very hard to treat. Simone Weil stated that for someone lost in a ditch the only way out is for someone to jump in the ditch, come down to the sufferer's level, and help him out. A long and arduous process! Who is willing to do that? 

Wong needed social interaction. He needed to find out that there were others in his situation. He needed to volunteer. He needed help.

What's so sad about suicide is that it is often impulsive, in other words, the desire to kill oneself is often temporary. I am convinced that suicide is often not so much a wish for death but the most desperate attempt to put an end to one's mental suffering. The  saddest aspect of all if that one doesn't get a second chance. Who knows what Wong's life would have been like in the future, with a little help from his friends and with a lot of help from his doctors? Maybe not perfect, but quite possibly bearable.

At age 35, Matthew Wong climbed to the roof of his studio and jumped. I wish I had been there to stop him. I close with a poem I wrote in his memory.

In Memoriam: Matthew Wong (1984-2019)

 

Happiness isn’t what ambition does.

The highest rung upon want’s ladder

Brought him to the dark side of the moon.

Climbed a jagged crater, jumped.

 

Not painting is pain, he said. When he

Slowed down, demons arose, bubbled  

By the worst devil of all, reputation.

Matthew Wong was only thirty-five;

 

I wish I had been there to stop him,

Life is over soon enough. Happy, still

Miserably happy, nearly eighty-year-old

Ambition advises a slow demise.

If you're thinking of harming yourself, please don't. Get help. The 24 hour suicide hotline is 800-273-8255. Choose life, please!

Mensch, durf te leven, Remember, life is for living.

1.

This month we read, "The Sisters of Auschwitz," by Roxane van Iperen, translated from the Dutch by Joni Zwart. This was the June selection for our fairly newly formed Diversity Book Club; so far we've read White Fragility, Woke Racism, Baldwin's Fire Next Time and Colson Whitehead's novel, Harlem Shuffle, all good books, with the possible exception of the first selection. 

Orignally published as Hooge Nest, The High Nest, in 2018, the book tells the story of two Jewish sisters, Jappy Brilleslipper (1916-2003) and Lien Brilleslipper (1912-1988), two brave members of the Dutch Resistance during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, which began in 1940 and ended in 1945.

In the middle of the war, the sisters went into hiding at The High Nest, a villa in the woods, which they filled with family members and refugees. Their resistance activities involved, among other things, obtaining false identity papers for those in imminent danger of being crushed by the Nazi machine. Betrayed in 1944, they were both deported by cattle car to Auschwitz, along with Anne and Margot Frank. As the  Red Army approached Auschwitz, they were transported, along with the Franks, to Bergen-Belsen. Thanks largely to Jappy's ingenuity, both sisters survived--the Frank sisters, however, weren't as lucky.

The book, albeit lacking in a novelist's creation of vivid characters, is well written; the impressive descriptions of events, however, bring that horrible period faithfully and impressively to life. 

Although so many of us already have, we must never forget the Holocaust. Not only should we keep those murdered by the Nazis in sacred remembrance, we must also keep vigilant to assure that history doesn't repeat itself.

We could and should be doing a hellluva lot better. Alas. 

2.

What is the matter with us? As the great German dramatist, Georg Büchner, wrote in the nineteenth century--What is it in us that whores, lies, and begs? Updated version: What is it in us that murders?

The horror of the extermination camps. Why haven't we changed?

Science informs us that humans haven't changed much in the last 100,000 years. Civilization began about 10,000 years ago--and was by no means world-wide at first. Humanity therefore spent at least 90% of the past 10 millennia exclusively as hunter gatherers. 

We evolved in groups which entailed a good deal of cooperation--how else would those groups have survived? (This cooperation is perhaps the origin of the biblical commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself.)  At a time when food was frequently scarce and life always precarious, cooperation seems to have been limited. This theory is borne out by the skeletal evidence of that period: many remains show injuries consistent with near-constant warfare. 

Humanity's cousins, the Neanderthals, became extinct about 40,000 years ago. There is increasing evidence that our ancestors were involved in their elimination. Was this the first evidence of genocide?

If it was, it certainly wasn't the last. I read once that before the Spanish conquest of South America, there were about 70 million indigenous peoples living on the continent. When the conquest was over, only about 4 million remained! The dark side of American history is better known today.--as it should be. The dark side, however, is not limited to America, it is, unfortunately, universal.

Once a group is isolated from society or thought to be different or separate, horrible things can happen. 

Hitler, for instance, was a very evil genius. He knew he had to separate and isolate the Jews first. There was certainly anti-Semitism in Germany before Hitler came to power, but arguably less than in other European countries. Intermarriage was common. Hitler, obsessed with the crazy notions of anti-Semitism, began to isolate the Jews the day he assumed power in 1933. It is said that opposition could have been effective at this time, but the little there was was ineffective. Soon Hitler established a reign of terror; from then on opposition was brutally squashed. It is also said that many Germans went along with Hitler until the end. Sad.

By the time Hitler invaded the Netherlands, the reign of terror was well established. It is a sad fact, revealed in the book, that while 30% of Belgian Jews and 25% of French Jews were deported--most of them were murdered. A full 76% of Dutch Jews, however, were deported. This indicates to me that there were many fascists in the Netherlands, and much cooperation with the Nazis. Dutch resistance was unfortunately not the whole story. (The Danish people, in contrast, saved most of the Jewish population of Denmark.)

By the time the Brillesliper sisters--and the Frank sisters--were betrayed and sent to Auschwitz, the war, from a Nazi perspective, was already lost. And yet the war against the Jews continued--to the very bitter end! For Hitler, destruction of Jews trumped national survival.

The Nazis were irrational. The Nazis were crazy. The Nazis were evil. What's worse: with the exception of those that ran the camps and possibly with the exception of the occupation forces as well, the Germans were and are no different from the rest of humanity.

What is the matter with us?

3.

Two poems come to mind, both by me. The first appeared years ago in a magazine, now defunct, called The Other Side. The other, appeared years later in Visions.

 In Memory of an Unknown Cousin

1.

They took you on a German day, Europe
still under its clouds.
You who were certainly my cousin
however many times removed,

were removed from passive neighbors,
still in unbombed houses, by night; you
are going to live and work and play
somewhere in Poland, they said.

2.

A scientist, a cook, a movie star, a
balding neurotic or my son's teacher (he
hates him)--Seventy years later
up from a nightmare, I wonder,

Smoke, what you would be? Black coffee.
Morning's ritual begins--Again water
comes out of my shower, not gas;
 I have no right to write your eulogy.

The Rosenthals of Passau

sashayed and lockstepped
in halls across Europe

They charlestonned like Schwarzen--At
first, this was a compliment;

how things changed. Where have they
spent the  postwar years?

Open the window and take a deep breath, then
stop what you're doing and turn.

4.

While taking a bath, I notice a tattoo, a cross about an inch long and an inch wide, located halfway between my navel and pubic bone.  I also have two smaller tattoos, one on each side of my pelvis. These are there  to guide the beam during radiotherapy, my current treatment for cancer. 

I couldn't help thinking of the tattooed numbers each inmate received upon arrival in Auschwitz. People, human beings, branded like cattle! My difficulties, compared to their difficulties, is like comparing a few pebbles to boulders!

Why me? A question I never ask. Why them? There is no adequate answer. I don't ever think I will understand the brutality of the Nazis. Their crimes, and especially, their victims, must not be forgotten!

Marx wrote that years after a great tragedy, e.g. the Holocaust, history repeats itself as farce. Trump is not Hitler. Putin is not Hitler. Kim Jong-un is no Hitler, Xi is no Hitler, etc. The cruelties of all these men, however, point in the direction of a realm which Hitler inhabited. Democracy is presently in danger, there can be no doubt about that. 

The January Insurrection, the war in Ukraine, concentration camps in North Korea and China, etc. etc. Not to mention Climate Change, gun control, and the Sixth Extinction!

How many farces does it take to precipitate another tragedy? I hope we will never find out.

5.

Lien and Jappy's transport, via cattle car, to Auschwitz and their trials until liberation, vividly described in the book, make for harrowing reading. Jappy's character shone like a light in near-absolute darkness; without her remarkable abilities, it is doubtful whether she and her sister would have survived. As we all know, Anne and Margot Frank weren't as lucky.

I remember seeing a painting on a wall during a visit to an acquaintance in New York. It was painted by my friend's father, who survived Auschwitz. It depicted one of the daily selection roll calls that occurred there: with a flick of the wrist it was determined by the Angel of Death (Mengele) who was to go the right, to the  gas chambers, and who was to go to the left and survive for another day. The painter depicted this daily occurrence at the camp. Above one of the inmates on the selection line was a guardian angel. My friend informed me that her father believed that without the help of this invisible being he wouldn't have survived. Suddenly, to me at least, an amateur painting became a masterwork.

I tell myself that one of the reasons the Shoah is so horrible is because we all know how life should be. "We must love one another or die," wrote W. H. Auden, Jappy and Lien, along with the vast majority of Jews, chose life, chai.

A poignant part of the book occurs when Lien is united with Eberhard, a classical musician and father of their child. He and a group of friends were performing Bach's Wedding Cantata just at that moment. Spring returned to the Netherlands and what better expression of renewal can be found than in this beautiful music?

As I read this section of the book, the music began to play in my mind. The peaceful, gently ascending broken chords; the indescribable beauty of the oboe; and then the transcendent vocal line:

Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten,
Frost und Winde gehn zur Ruh

(Be gone, dismal shadows; frost and wind fade away)

We must never forget the winter, so that we can live more fully in the spring.

Nor will I ever forget the story of Jappy and Lien and the background of dismal shadows they lived through. Special thanks goes to Roxane van Iperen for bringing their story to life.

May their bravery continue to inspire us. For the Resistance is far from over.

Nevertheless: Mensch, durf te leven. Remember, life is for living.