My paternal Grandmother’s name was Sara
She died when my Father was still a boy.
My Father’s family had immigrated to the United States in the mid 1800’s.
Charleston was one of the few colonial cities after Savannah, Georgia that
allowed Jews to practice their faith without restriction.
Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue was founded in 1749. It is the fourth oldest Jewish congregation in the continental United States. It had always been my family’s synagogue.
Most of the early Jewish Immigrants to Charleston were Sephardic.
My Father was Sephardic as was my Mother.
Sephardim refer to the descendants of Jews who lived in and were expelled
from Spain in the 15th century.
The term Sephardim comes from Sepharad, the Hebrew word for Spain.
Some members of my family spoke Ladino.
Ladino is Judeo-Spanish. It is the spoken and written Hispanic language
of Jews of Spanish origin.
My Father and his Family were ‘Old Charleston’ and proud of it.
When he mentioned his Mother, he described a loving woman
who worked hard and was a leader in their community.
I have never heard the story of Sara’s illness but my Father said
that she seemed to vanish a little each day.
I don’t know the name of the illness but the word ‘cancer’ was whispered.
In the Charleston of my Father’s youth, people had many superstitions.
People with Cancer were shunned because everyone thought that Cancer
was contagious or that cancer was a form of demonic possession.
Some people thought that rubbing a toad on the affected breast healed
breast cancer.
And far too many people still believe all illness is punishment from God.
There remains a residue of stigma that attends Cancer in American society.
We still associate health with virtue and illness with moral lassitude.
The death of my Father’s Mother deeply wounded him, and I think that
this wound altered the course of his life.
We’ve learned ways to mitigate damage to our bodies.
We know much more about everything in 2016 but we still have much
to learn.
We never replace our sisters, mothers, favorite aunts, best friends and
Grandmothers.
As we consider the women we love and honor and the women we have lost, let us all do one small thing each day to make the future enlightened and more compassionate.
Dedicated to Sara.
I should like to have met you.
Beautiful tribute. 🌹
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Thank you and thank you for leaving a comment. 🙂
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My pleasure!🌹
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Loving indeed. Thank you for sharing, Robert. I lost a beloved young friend (36) to this dreadful monster.
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I’m glad I did it…And I’m hope that it helps in some small way to save women’s lives.
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Me too, sweet man. Me too. You are a precious, precious soul. So very glad the wind blew you my direction.
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Thank you, Rita. 🙂
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Deeply touched over here, Thanks for sharing. G-uno
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Thank you…:)
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Outstanding Robert!
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Thank you, Wendell!
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OOOH!
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A wonderful post. I lost my grandmother and five (out of six) of her sisters to breast cancer. Your comments regarding the superstitions regarding illness struck home. It’s not an issue exclusive to any particular culture or illness. And you’re right; we’ve still got a long way to go. Thank you.
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Thank you for your comment. I’m sorry to learn of your losses. Cancer is awful for everyone involved…
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Truly. Thankfully, breast cancer is one of the more treatable forms of cancer, thanks to the increasing awareness and support brought by people like yourself and I thank you for that.
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🙂
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It is scary how such beliefs can impact a whole life.
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Belief’s destroy lives.
I wonder how many geniuses have died on out streets these 40 years because we believe that the mentally ill deserve to die.
Isn’t that history will view it? That they died from treatable illnesses because we as a culture decided that they deserved it?
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I agree completely! Ignorance and fear (which in this case is only ignorance labled as a knowing) have caused the worst tragedies. To me it is thre root for discrimination, racism, war!
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I agree Erika.
It seems self indulgent now that we have so many tools for making fact based decisions.
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So true, Robert!!!
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Beautiful piece. I could feel the angst in every word.
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I didn’t see angst…but it may be invisible to me.
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A very loving tribute to her, Robert. 💕
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Thank you. I never met my Father’s Mother. I often wonder what she was like.
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I’m sure a great deal of her spirit lives on in you.
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I suppose there has to be. I hear that she was a loving person.
My Father must have missed her terribly.
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Rob, I’m not sure whether I am Sephardic or w/e… any cancer is bad. My friend Ieva had breast cancer, my friend Lorraine has bone cancer… 😦
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Most us us are w/e…:)
Cancer is bad. MY partner’s Dad died from multiple myeloma.
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I had a friend die from cancer. Her name was Erika. 😦
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Were you very close?
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Erika and I were friends. She’s in a better place now Rob. ❤
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I’m glad. It’s hard to lose a friend…we never stop wanting to see them.
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Bone cancer, multiple myeloma…ohh man.
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She (Lorraine) is a fighter. 🙂
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🙂
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It spread to her chest. She needs prayers. 😦
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Aww man! She has mine as of now.
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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Thank you for the re-blog.
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