My son has inspired me.

My son has inspired me.

My 17 year old son has inspired me to finally do something that I have been planning to do for some time. His decision to participate in the 2010 March of the Living has demonstrated to me that one person can make a difference in this complicated world, and that inaction is the path of the lazy.

For those who do not know what the March of the Living is; it is a yearly gathering of thousands of teenagers, adults and Holocaust survivors, mostly Jewish, from all over the world. The participants visit cities and towns in Poland that were centers of Polish and European Jewry before WWII, as well as Jewish ghettos and concentration camps. The highlight of the program in Poland is the actual ‘March of the Living’ during which participants, armed with Israeli flags of all sizes, recreate the death marches from Auschwitz to Birkenau from which very few victims of the Final Solution returned. The program then continues with a weeklong tour of Israel, the reestablished Jewish homeland. The March program clearly demonstrates that, although 90% of the Jews in Poland and two-thirds of the Jews in Europe perished during the Holocaust, the Jewish people are still here and flourishing in the State of Israel.

As part of his participation in the program, parents and spouses have also attended a number of meetings, both to inform us of the details of the program, as well as the emotional effects our loved ones may experience from the trip. We watched a video from a past March that demonstrated, as mere words could not, the emotional depths of the experience. Through my tears, I vowed to attend a future March and take definitive action now.

I have long complained about the path that this country is taking, both domestically and with regard to foreign relations, and have wasted numerous hours and a lot of psychic energy debating these issues on Facebook. But, no more. My son’s amazing and very adult decision has finally prompted me to “get off the couch” and do something definitive. If my words in this blog educate just one person, then I have made a difference in this world. If that person then pays it forward, the effects can be exponential.

Thank you, Corey.