I grew up hardly seen. Hardly heard. Hardly spoken to, unless it was to be criticized

It’s an ordinary Tuesday night in May and I am frozen, horrified by what I have just done. Did I really just push my daughter? Me?!

I am more stunned than she is. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. I’m Super-Stay-At-Home Mom! I give my kids everything and anything I can! Where did this go wrong?

I am a 3G, that is, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. You hear a lot about Survivors. Survivors, who despite all they lost, all they went through, retained their emunah and their simchas hachayim. Survivors who built institutions from nothing, prosperity from pennilessness. Who were bastions of Torah and chesed. Survivors who built healthy, happy families that spread Torah and light throughout the world. These were great people — unimaginably great.

But they weren’t the only survivors. There were those who were ravished by the Holocaust, their joy extinguished, never to be reignited. These Survivors limped through life, their inner wounds etched on their hearts as indelibly as the numbers on their arms.