The Same But DifferentItems from my 2003 trip, the March of Remembrance and Hope I have been here before.
In 2003 I sat in the airport in Newark, New Jersey anxiously awaiting my flight to Warsaw Poland. I was with a group of my friends and classmates from Seton Hill University accompanied by professors that I had gotten to know well in my two years there. My best friend was with me and we were nervous but excited. It was my first trip to Europe and I was ready to go. We finally left; New Jersey’s late night became a Polish afternoon and we were off an incredible life changing journey to sties throughout Poland. So yes, I have been here before But this is all different. Today, I am in an airport in Chicago and while I am again anxiously awaiting my flight to Warsaw Poland, this is not a group I know well. We are made up of teachers and others who work with students and we don’t know each other well yet but I know that this intense and emotional experience will bring us close together quickly this week and we’ll lean heavily on one another. I am much more nervous and much less excited - the responsibility of this trip, knowing what is about to come, and the fact that I have done some living since 2003 makes me a little more hesitant than I was ten plus years ago. So tonight when we take off and a Chicago night becomes a Polish afternoon, this trip will be different. The world is different now. I didn’t own a digital camera in 2003 - my photographs are in print and I had trouble locating them in the days leading up to this trip. My videos were all taken on a camcorder that recorded to mini VHS tapes that I wouldn’t know how to play if I wanted to. Last time, I came armed with international calling cards so i could call home often (although my Mom would probably tell you that I hardly called at all). This time, I am typing this on my laptop on airport wifi with my phone that takes better pictures and videos than any camera I owned in 2003 next to me, loaded with an app that I’ve been using to practice my Polish the last few weeks. While I’m gone I’ll be able to FaceTime my family to help keep the inevitable homesickness away. The world is different. Most importantly, I am different. In 2003 I was single, unmarried, no kids, and few responsibilities that awaited me at home. I had very little experience with the “real world” then. But now, I have a wonderful family and lots of responsibilities waiting at home in the “real world”. And that will profoundly shape my experience. I know I will see my son in the faces of the children in photographs and hear my daughters in the stories of survivors whose parents made unthinkable sacrifices to save their lives. I will wonder what my husband and I would have done or could have done to save our own family. In the stories of Righteous Gentiles, non Jews who risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbors and even strangers, I will hope that that is who I would have been and that I would have risked my life to save my students, my neighbors, etc. So I know that I am different and I will see the sites and hear incredible stories and they will teach me different lessons than they did in 2003. Because I am different now. So I have been there before but I have never been here before - this person in this moment in this group with all the unique lessons that there will be for me to take to my students, a mission that I am incredibly excited about. Comments are closed.
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About the Trip
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