Hope can spring from the strangest places; like a former Concentration Camp. The day of my visit to Auschwitz marked eleven moths and fourteen days since my son, Jack, was born, and eleven months and fifteen days since he died in my arms. It was 7 weeks to the day since I discovered that my “Rainbow” pregnancy had come to an end. Vacationing in Poland with family was not how I wanted to be spending my spring break. Locked in a room where I could alternate between crying my eyes out and staring at the ceiling was how I really longed to wile away my holiday.

Friends had advised me to visit Auschwitz in the early part of my trip to Poland; they claimed it was too depressing a note to end a trip on. Auschwitz is indeed depressing: a long corridor full of hair still woven into braids after all these years, over 80,00 shoes of all shapes and sizes, suitcases carefully labeled with names and addresses, shaving brushes, eye glasses, and even a shaggy brown teddy-bear. Standing in the gas chambers where thousands had innocently marched to their death my already shattered heart broke a little bit more.

The Memorial at Auschwitz is not just about the dead though, but also about the roughly 60,000 people who survived. No one would have blamed any Holocaust victim if they spent their remaining days angry at the hand life dealt them. As I read the words these survivors wished to share I wasn’t reading messages of bitterness, regret and despair though. Instead each plaque called out with words of strength hope, survival and triumph.

One survivor recalled meeting a young man who had lost his entire family in the Rwandan genocide. More than any other, his story resonated with me.

“I always tell the young that I am carrying a torch of well-being and goodness. Despite the fact that I could have been a bitter one, I believe my torch should be like the Olympic torch, a torch that brings goodwill on earth.”

We had a person named Moses on our trip, a survivor of the genocide in Rwanda. It was incredible how he bonded with me, by my being able to tell him my stories. He wrote me a letter about how it’s much easier for him to accept, to live in the future because I have given him another wellanschaung, another worldview. It’s very important for Holocaust survivors-or anybody else- to spread togetherness and goodwill. Because drop by drop, like water on a stone, the world can become a better place.”

As I read his words it dawned on me that I too am a survivor. In the past year I’d had flashes of believing in the future and occasionally I carried a torch of well being and goodness. But since my most recent miscarriage I mostly lugged around a torch of bitterness and despair. If there were a Child Loss Museum with plaques to survivors, no one was likely to be inspired by mine.

That’s not who I want to be though. Twenty years from now if I meet another woman who has lost her child I don’t want to tell her “Sorry, life without children is meaningless. You’ll never be happy again.” How sad if the message Moses had gotten from someone further down the road of genocide survival was: “Your life is over now, it will never get better. You have no future.” As I stood there I made a vow to myself; the person with the sad and despairing message would never be me. When I meet another woman who has survived the loss of her child I will offer her a wellanschaung and a hug and let her know that there are better days ahead.

At times those better days can be excruciatingly difficult to see through the fog of pain brought on by the death of my only child. And the future will never include watching Jack or any of my lost children grow up, no reading them bed time stories, and tucking them in at night. I’m still not sure what my new wellanschaung will look like; how I will weave my losses into a different worldview. But I do know I’ll make the deliberate choice to struggle onward and I when I fall back I’ll read the words written on that plaque.

The bus ride back to Krakow was a quiet one; many people whose day had started with smiles were now solemn if not downright tearful. But unlike my fellow passengers I left Auschwitz more hopeful than when I had arrived. Many drops of water still need to fall on my stone, but if the survivors of Auschwitz could go forth carrying a torch of goodness and light surely I can too.

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On May 11, 2015 my son, Jack, came into the world and just over twenty-four hours later he left it much too soon leaving behind a mother with a shattered heart. I strive to move forward and work to insure that Jack’s touch on my life is a positive one. In addition to being Jack’s mother I am a teacher, athlete, writer, and traveler who has lived and worked outside of the United States for the past ten years.

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