Exit Laughing

I don't know about the other two.

But the one all the way on the right, standing proud by her Passover dish, survived brutal poverty, hunger, beatings, molestation, death of her baby brother, denial of education and the responsibility from the age of eight on of raising her surviving siblings.

She went on to survive 7-day weeks, 12-hour days working side by side with her husband until at some point they got to what we all considered wealthy:  comfortable middle class with the freedom to stand over a table of a lot of food commemorating the departure from hardship.

When you are running for your life, you sometimes gotta leave a lot behind: happiness, hope, the joy of skipping because the sun is out.  Giggling. 

And yet....

... somehow, as my aunt fled to promises of better days, the girl she once was before a war broke out on her body and soul,  a girl who could giggle with delight, came with her.

**
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