The last episode was a little segway to Love lost, hopefully to be regained. Mother never did let go, and in that, lived as she chose.

Our progress as new inhabitants of NZ was quite the journey. My sister, my mother, and I saw it all from a different perspective. Mother kept reinforcing the need to learn and keep one’s wits about one. I saw that as a call to grow up strong, my sister more as a bullying stance. I recall Mother’s call to do the dishes, which I would answer, in the call of duty. My sister’s stance was to do it when she chose. I recall asking her why she just didn’t comply and live an easier life, it was not her DNA. On the other hand, I saw my mother take her best friend to court because he had tried to cheat her principles in Germany out of money by claiming a defective product – despite using it. When I asked, why she did that, she answered because one has to have an ethical base to which one holds oneself and thus can be relied upon, her friend crossed that baseline. She won the case, and they remained friends, as he knew he was wrong. Tough love, interesting lesson. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. ( Keates) there is beauty in integrity,

Where is the balance between compliance and standing one’s ground in the interest of the greater good? What is the greater Good? I suppose the answer ultimately is in the judgment of time. Israelis can reflect on the inhumanity of Russian Pogroms, the Holocaust, etc. Yet a blind eye can be turned to the treatment of Palestine since 1948. It is beautiful to watch individuals from both sides act with humanity and civility, yet why cannot we find a consensus to stop the extreme exercises of inhumanity and escalate an already unenviable dilemma?