Gerda's Raspberry - Quest for Meaning

December 1, 2013

01 Dec 2013

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I stopped at the Holocaust Memorial, something I had previously walked quickly past. Names of hundreds of thousands of survivors towered over me, neatly written on giant plexiglass monuments. At eye level, sayings and quotes by survivors are etched into the structures.

I got stuck in front of one. The world stopped for a while as I read and re-read the quote. Tears trickled out. I jotted down the quote on a piece of paper and brought it home. This tiny piece of paper received its own folder. I’d open it up, read the quote, and re-file, only to pick it up a few days later. The words were by Gerda Weisman Klien: “Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to a friend.”

I tried to put myself in Gerda’s place, in Ilse’s place. I couldn’t. Until one day with a raspberry pint resting in my lap, I’d lift one up and think of gifts given: my mother’s words of comfort the day I came home from school humiliated that I had been the first to misspell a word in the spelling bee; my sister’s strong hands clenching mine as she whispered comforting words to me past drones of machines, pumps, and tubes during my ICU internment hell; my lover’s words to me that to him I am Grace, I am Home. With each thought, I ate a raspberry. Something previously unimaginable now took shape, my vessel of life was full, filled with gifts. I felt Gerda’s words and life in a way I couldn’t comprehend before, by getting to the gifts that were given to me, all residing within, like well-eaten raspberries.

Published by Skinner House in 2000 in Glad to be Human. Available from the UUA bookstore or 800-215-9076.