#146

Night.

Reading about the holocaust reminds me of darkness; reminds me of the night. There are many things in the night…but most of all there are memories. Memories of running, of numbness and of retreating from the world. The holocaust reminds me of that. While I will never understand just what it was like to be there, I do understand, to some extent the reactions described on the page, the reactions of the people. My own innocence was wrung out and squelched as well and I emphasize. I, too, know what it’s like for my faith to be crushed. My religious faith at the time wasn’t very strong, but my faith in people and in goodness was. I remember what it’s like to stop believing…to stop feeling. No longer would I wish for something better, for something to change or to go right. I no longer wanted or cared that I didn’t have. I no longer felt abused or taken advantage of. I felt quite strong, strangely. No longer was I the abused, the beaten down…now I was just one who survived. One who moved on and dealt with the situations as they came, no longer expecting anyone to help, anyone to sympathize or protect me. I got hurt more, I experienced even worse, but by now I no longer felt. The experiences were dead to me, the people were dead to me; I felt nothing. I was nothing but a husk of a person, then. Perhaps I wasn’t even a person at all; without my love and without my dreams, what is left of me really? I can’t even begin to concieve what I would be, now, without those things. I was just a shell, an empty shell. My memories reflect that…they don’t feel, they don’t have emotions, as memories should. They are just pictures. Just the yelling, just the physical sensations. No emotion whatsoever. I can relate to some of the holocaust survivors…because some reacted in the same way. Lost faith in God is not so different to my own loss of faith. I remember, too, what it feels like to talk with those who still did dream and believe in some of the most base morals of society…to protect the children, to help others, to respect others, to believe in the goodness of man…I remember when I once would say the same so naturally. I remember scorning them during my own Night. How couldn’t they see what I see? How could they be so blind? The only reason they could believe in such things is because they’re sheltered, because they have no idea how the world REALLY works underneath it all…that wasn’t so long ago. Now…I’d like to say I’m doing better, that I’m back to the way I was. But I’m not. I’m trying, I’m trying to recapture the things that once made me me, but even now I feel like such a stranger amongst those very same people I used to be like. I remember once being able to believe the way they do, so naturally, but I just can’t anymore. Not like that.

My own faith is different than theirs because of my experiences. I feel there will always be a gap between me and others of my faith…an uncrossable gap that can never, ever be breached, not truly. I can explain and try to relate my experiences and my understandings because of them as much as I want, but some things can never really truly be captured. One has to understand, has to read between the lines and be able to relate. But people simply can’t relate. They can understand the circumstances, they can understand what physically happened, but they can never ever truly understand. In all my time of relating this past to others, only those who have also lived it have been able to relate. With them, I don’t even need to say much….most can simply go unsaid and there is understanding, kinship and mutual support for one another. So in this way, too, I relate to those from the holocaust. While I may never truly understand what went down there, I do understand what it’s like to experience something so profound and so powerful that you just can never put it into words no matter how long you try, no matter how long you talk, how little you talk, or how precise the words may be…there just aren’t the words for some things.

Remembering the Night is not a pleasant experience for me. It makes me wonder what I am doing now. Am I faithful, now? Do I really believe like I used to? Or am I just trying to be what I used to be like in an effort to bring back my old self? Regretfully, I already have the answer. I’m trying, but that’s all I have right now. My faith is weak still and I know it. I’m not being the good person I want to be, not truly. I still have many faults before I can be that. And if I, myself, can’t embody the very definition of what it’s like to be faithful, then how can I ever really believe? I hope I’m doing the right thing. Even if it’s not, I have to keep trying. The alternative is worse. A life without this faith is a life like before; a life of endless Night even though I’m far away from that part of my life. A life without love, without faith in man, without faith in God is a life not worth living.