Since that trip took several hours, I found my self sitting and thinking of all the stories that I ever heard about that woman named Meme. She was 107 years old when I came to visit her and I was always told that she was responsible for my existence. She was staying in an “elderly house”, as my father put it, and he always referred to her as his mom, even though she was not my grandmother. I think it’s why I was so upset to be forced to go and meet her. I had just became a man by the interpretation of my religion, I was 13 years old, and the fact that this “stranger” had any kind of attachment or responsibility towards me made me feel insecure. I did not know why I had to come along and as a small child I found any obligation a burden.

I have to take you back in time to when my father was three years old and the Second World War just started. My family is Jewish and so my father’s parents had to hide my father away from the murderous eyes of the Nazis. They had to run for their lives and they looked for a place where my father could live safely. I’m not even sure how they found this noble couple who agreed to guard him with their lives and their souls from evil. My father stayed there until the war ended.

Meme at that time had a son named Emil and he, like all the friends his age, joined the army when Germany invaded Belgium. Not long after Emil started his duty service, he was captured right near the enemy border. Since his parents were close to the royal family of Belgium, the Germans offered Meme and her husband an exchange. They told them that if they would turn in one Jew, their son would be set free and he would not be executed like the rest of his friends. Even tough it would have been the easiest thing to do, They never turned my father over to the hands of the Germans. The price they had to pay for that humanitarian act was enormous. They never had the opportunity to see their “young flower” bloom. He never came home. My father said that from that moment he had carried with him a heavy oppression.

Then out of the blue, just when we were parking the car in front of the “elderly house” my father turned to me and asked, “Amiel, do you know you are named after Emil, Meme’s son?” Before I understood what he was asking me, a nurse in a long white uniform came up to us with a greeting and showed us the way to Meme’s room. My legs refused to move and my head felt like it was about to explode. “No!” I didn’t want to be there at all. I looked for a place to hide, a place where I could resume my sanity.
The nurse said that Meme’s condition was very bad and that she had not spoken a word in the last 5 years since her husband died. She told my father that he should not be upset if she did not recognize him. In fact, she said that Meme did not recognize anyone. The thing that worried me the most was when she said that Meme just stared out the window as if she were waiting for someone to show up. My poor heart was beating like an African drum. Tears came to my eyes.

As we walked through the door and we were in her sight, Meme changed her expression and started saying over and over again “Simon, Simon!” The nurses could not believe it, they thought it was magic. There was Meme screaming her lungs out as if she were a small child. Meme turned her head and looked at me, I froze and I was barely breathing. “Amiel,” she said. “Mon petit garcon, Mon Emil”. She closed her eyes and with her last breath she said, “Now I’m sure I did the right thing.”

Today when I look back, I feel ashamed of the fact that I was selfish about not wanting to go visit my Grandmother Meme. As my father told me that morning, one day I will be happy that I went with him, and he was right. As I look back at the past, I realize the different perspective of people on events. That small visit meant the world for Meme, even though for me it was just another day, but now I recognize that day was one of the most precious events of my life.

In memory of Emil
Amiel Weisblum