A Good Man

A good man died.

He showed up in my life when he showed up for my grandfather’s memorial service in 2005. Despite years of hardship and illness, he came to say goodbye to his best friend… and to make sure I knew my grandpa.

He told me stories; stories that were familiar but not how I’d heard them.

Once, my grandpa told me a story about a man in the concentration camps, who saw his friend selected for the gas chambers.

“He was a good employee and a good friend, so of course the man had to save him,” Grandpa said. “So he took a corpse from the barracks – someone who had died during the night – and put it in the gas chamber. Then he grabbed his friend and took him away. The Nazis counted the bodies. They didn’t care who was actually in there.”

“Your grandpa, he was a good employer and a good friend,” came the new version of the story. “So of course he had to save the man. He was smart, your grandfather. He knew the Nazis would only count bodies.”

Story after story transformed in each new telling. My grandpa was the hero in all of his own stories. His best friend wanted me to know.

He sent me a card when I graduated from college, telling me confidently that his best friend would be proud of me.

He came to my grandmother’s memorial service, and praised me for working on my master’s degree. “You are very smart, like you grandfather. Him,” -- here he gestured toward my then 12-year-old brother -- “He’s a ladies’ man. Also like your grandfather.”

The last time I saw him was this past March at my cousin’s wedding. It was hard for him to speak, and he tired easily. His wife confided that he came mainly to see his best friend’s grandchildren.

We sat down, and he told me more stories. One was about how my grandfather stole his name, but he forgave him. He told me that if I chose to pursue my PhD in New York, I was welcome to stay with him and his wife.

“I wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble!”

He gazed at me for a moment before speaking. “How could I not do something good for my best friend’s granddaughter if I had to the power to do it? What would I say to him? You aren’t trouble. You are Jack’s granddaughter.”

He was a good man who wanted to comfort a grieving grandchild. He was a good friend who wanted stories and a legacy to continue.

You might not notice the difference, but I do. The world is poorer without this man in it.

The Weight Of Legacy

The last few days I've been thinking about the people who have contributed to my life.

And on many levels, that means friends, mentors, educators, parents and siblings. But I have been thinking about my grandparents, and specifically my Grandpa Jack.
My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. The concentration camps didn't only take away his family and friends, but it stole his opportunity for education, the health of a family coffee business, and the community in which the Azous name had existed since Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.

It would've been easier to die, you know. He watched his mother, his sister, his niece and his nephew forced into the gas chambers. He risked his life by stealing potato peels, eating them so he could stay strong enough to live. And when he was finally liberated by Allied Forces, he returned to a nation that immediately sent him to fight in a civil war.

Grandpa Jack left Greece for the United States as soon as he could, and overcame language barriers, a failed marriage and the challenges facing a single father in 1960s America. He built a business, a family, and a new life. My grandfather's home was a place of joy and food and tradition, where he taught his grandkids by story-telling and through a life well-lived. His smile and laughter filled the space and the hearts of those who spent time there... and when he died the echoes still reverberated.

And while the ending of Grandpa Jack's story seems to show us that all the hardship was worthwhile, he couldn't know that in the concentration camps. He couldn't know that when he looked down at his three young daughters and had to figure out a way to raise them alone. He couldn't know that everything was going to work out when he thought he'd lost one daughter forever.

When I think about my own life, I think about the people who fought so hard to live and create meaning and provide opportunities for me. And I think about the privilege and burden of these legacies, how they force me to live a life of meaning to honor the sacrifices made just so I could exist.

Who has sacrificed for you? And how do you honor the legacy left to you?