Last week I had a truly unique experience here in Israel. I've known that my grandmother lived in Jerusalem, but I never met her. All of her children were estranged from her, including my mother. I knew very little about her aside from her name, Bryna, and that she sent me a birthday card all the way from Israel when I turned 10. Before going on Birthright in 2017, I asked one of my cousins if he ever thought about reaching out. He's about 5 years older than me and did meet Bryna at least once that I know of: at my parents' wedding. My cousin said he would never reach out to our grandmother because he respected his mother's decision to keep them apart. I decided that my cousin was right. Our mothers had kept us from Bryna for a reason and I trusted their judgment. It wasn't until I returned to Israel later that year for graduate school that I considered making contact. I've always been curious about meeting Bryna, but I didn't want to hurt my mom or my aunt by disobeying their wishes. However, by December, I realized that my grandmother was getting older and, if I kept waiting, I might not get the chance to see her alive. First, I tried to find a Facebook page or some kind of contact information online. No luck. My second and final attempt was to message the only cousin I knew who might have access to Bryna's contact information. She encouraged me not to go down this path, but said she would ask around. I never heard from her again. On January 19th, my mom sent me an email titled "Mom is dead." She had heard from her aunt who found out from a cousin who learned from another cousin (who I would later meet). I felt disappointed, but what were the odds that only a month after I started looking for Bryna, she would pass away? In some cosmic way, this is how it was meant to be. However, I had no less curiosity about her. I told my mom that I wanted to go to her funeral. As an expert at Facebook sleuthing, my mom found the notice. There was some general information and then an email address of her "dearest friend." This is what my email to her said: "Hello, My name is Miranda Franklin-Wall and I am Bryna Franklin's granddaughter. I am hoping to go to her memorial service and would love more details on the time and location. Thank you. Best, Miranda" I received a very warm response and an offer to meet before the memorial service. As I did not have the time to go to Jerusalem, my grandmother's friend offered to meet me in Tel Aviv. I was nervous. This encounter would mean I was officially opening a door that would be difficult to shut again, not just for me, but also for my mom and my aunt. I also had no idea what Bryna's life was like here. Did she embody the sordid characteristics that my mom had described? Was her friend like that too? We met at a cafe and, to my surprise, Bryna's friend painted her as a saint. She had been a positive presence in everyone's lives. She was always writing letters of encouragement to people, especially on their birthdays. She gave what little money she had to her friends who needed it. The list went on and on. I left the meeting feeling confused. I believed my mom's account of Bryna, so was it possible that moving to Israel had been a redemptive experience for her? My grandmother's friend had brought up reconciliation with Bryna and her children. Apparently shortly before she passed, her friend had encouraged her to reach out to her children. Bryna refused to because it went against their wishes. She did, however, write a letter addressed to her children and grandchildren, which her friend provided me with. It asked for forgiveness, but the language led me to believe it wasn't sincere. On the day of the memorial service, I met the only family Bryna had still been in touch with, a cousin who lives in Jerusalem. We bonded over our shared facial features and this crazy family we are a part of. I instantly liked her. She described Bryna for me. She was tall, poised, and had dark red hair like me before she went grey. While she was always a positive light in my cousin's presence, she also knew a little about my grandmother's dishonorable past. I was grateful to be able to get a more balanced image of Bryna from her. Before the memorial service, we went to Bryna's apartment. It was a studio in government subsidized housing. I was shocked to see that it was only a couple blocks from an overlook I had been to less than 3 weeks before my grandmother had passed. The apartment was eclectic. Bryna had spent many years in China and it was a mix between Chinese, American, and Israeli cultures. Bryna also saved many little momentos and trinkets. My grandmother's honorary daughter was at the apartment. She and my cousin were very nice and kept asking if I wanted anything. That was the strangest part. Here was the home of a woman who was, by blood, my grandmother. But by definition, she had not been my grandmother or even a mother to my mom. What was I supposed to do with her trinkets? I didn't feel like I had the right to take anything from her. I did take pictures though, anything to do with my mom or my aunt. Bryna's memorial service was held at Yakar, a synagogue in Jerusalem. There were about 140 people at the memorial service, but I was one of maybe three who knew about her past. People who shared stories about her described how she advocated for forgetting about the past and focusing on the present and the future. After my grandmother first moved to Israel, she even refused to tell people her last name. When people asked for her name, she would say, "Bryna, just Bryna." That was when I realized that reconciliation would have never been possible between Bryna and her children. She didn't want to deal with the past because it was too painful, but her children would have needed acknowledgement of it. My grandmother was only able to be a positive influence in the lives of people she had not hurt in her darker days. I started crying. I cried throughout her entire funeral. Here I am studying conflict resolution and I realized that my own family's conflict was unsolvable.
Maybe for cases like this or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which wounds are too deep, it takes a generation to symbolically bring the two sides together. I certainly see evidence of this in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The current generation of teenagers in Israel is one of the first in decades to have not lived through serious violence. An organization I intern for, Debate for Peace, unites Israeli-Jew, Israeli-Arab, and Palestinian teenagers through Model UN. The Israeli-Jew participants tell stories of how their parents would not let them go to conferences held in Arab villages. The parents thought they would be killed. However, the persuasive kids would talk their parents into letting them go and, after going to a couple of conferences, the parents no longer feared Arab towns (it is important to note that the majority of Arab parents did not reciprocate the fear of their children going to Jewish towns). The difference between generations is vast. The previous generation experienced trauma first-hand and, while their children know the trauma and violence occurred, they are emotionally removed from it. These are the kinds of people capable of reconciling. Similarly, in my situation it is too late for Bryna and her children to reconcile, but perhaps I can in a way. First, I can maintain a relationship with my cousin in Jerusalem and her kids. I would be forging a bridge between my side of the family and the side of the family that knew Bryna well, but is also emotionally removed from the conflict. Second, going to Bryna's memorial service was a conciliatory gesture. Wherever her spirit is, perhaps she knows I went. I feel grateful that I opened this door and have gotten to learn about her. I feel even more grateful that my mom and aunt have been so gracious and understanding of my curiosity. My grandmother: a fascinating woman with a lot of dark and a lot of light. She seemed to step into the light in Israel where she called home. RIP Bryna |
Details
ArchivesCategories |