Part of belonging to a lineage is the act of finding ourselves within the story, claiming a particular link in the chain of inheritance, as testimony to our merit for inclusion. And then he’d say, "Jews are responsible for each other." We all heard that phrase from him. It was the partner to his positivity. Forgive in your heart, and take your inheritance of survival, your legacy of peoplehood, seriously. And we did.

[1] We thought a lot about how this story ends. Is it with one of Miriam’s children, the next generation? Is it by returning to Simon’s voice? Who gets to hold the final piece of this turning of the story? And in the end, we decided that there is no end, it intentionally hangs, unbalanced, unfinished, a thread that both continues to be pulled and woven at the same time.

[2] What was it that we inherited? What gift came of this line of life that should never have been? We think it’s one another. The choice to continue to choose each other, to be one another’s best friends and learn to love each other as best as we can. In that spirit, we share a few sweet memories - of lives well lived, joys tangled with sorrows, and the freedom that comes with the birth of new branches on the tree of our family story.

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