My seven-year-old self knew that spying on people was bad, but there I was in my second-floor bedroom and there they were below, just feet away, on their screened porch playing Sorry, the whole family bent over the board, Mom, dad, two kids and a baby of 2 running from lap to lap. They were lit up by a kerosine lantern. They were shouting SorrrrEEEEE as someone got bounced back to Start.
It was summer at Bay Beach Ontario Canada, and out front, a wide sand beach and, to a 7 year old, endless waves of Lake Erie. After a day of swimming, drippy castles, hot dogs, French fries, and loganberry--it was no different summer or winter--I had to be in bed by 7:30. I tossed for an hour, as the light dimmed. I heard the neighbors’ bare feet brush the sandy porch floor. I peeked through the rails of my bed, pressing my sun-burned cheeks against the cold metal like a small prisoner and stared down at the glow next door. They were renters, not Jewish, and we hardly knew them even though they were a lively family and very friendly. But we had our own large group of family and friends that came out to visit from Buffalo every day—some lucky enough to be invited to dinner. My mom raced around, cleaning, shopping, gardening, cooking, banning all sand from our new linoleum floors. She was beautiful with a long single braid that she pinned up later as she relaxed on the beach with her friends. My dad would arrive from his dental office later in the day and immediately set out in his rowboat with its 8 hp motor to sit and snooze—a small speck on the lake.
That was August 1944. Jewish families were being incinerated with astonishing efficiency at that very moment. 8 years later in 1952, I read Diary of Ann Frank. I thrilled at every shared thought, nothing held back, no secrets too embarrassing to reveal. I remembered where our family was the summer that they were discovered. At 15, I felt enormous grief and guilt that I lived and she died.
I feel it now at 85. I also treasure my full life.