Richard Reiss

My grandmother was a quiet woman who rarely spoke about her childhood growing up in Eastern Europe. I knew she had a brother in South America and a sister in Israel. What I didn’t know was that she had two other siblings who died in the Holocaust. And long before that, before she reached her teens, both of her parents succumbed to the Spanish Flu.

To meet her, one would think she was just another nice, old Jewish lady living in the Bronx. She had friends and relatives nearby. She had a job. She had a husband, too, until one day in 1951, a year after my parents got married, my grandfather was killed in a horrific car accident in which many people died. My grandmother, mother, father and uncle, who were in the car when the accident occurred, survived. They are all gone now, but when they were alive, the accident was never discussed. None of this was.

My grandmother had a hard life, but I didn’t learn about it until she was gone. To me, she was just my grandmother, always there with a hug, a kiss and some candy. Her life, unbeknownst to me when she was alive, was filled with immeasurable sadness.

I share her story not because her life was unique. She was hardly the first person to live through tragedy. Yet it reminds me that we all have things we don’t talk about, things we don’t want other people to know. We carry (and sometimes bury) events that might best be shared with a friend, confidant or therapist. When we don’t, it weighs us down, although those around us might not know it.

There is a mountain of information we likely don’t know about many of the people we think we know. Their lives might have been cruel and unfair. They, too, go to work, have family and friends. They, too, have burdens they carry.

In my life, I have had my share of tragedy and loss. Unlike my grandmother, however, and admittedly to the dismay and embarrassment of my parents, I have shared most of it through writing. Nonetheless, when I think of the difficulties I’ve been through, and I look at others whose lives seem perfectly aligned with happiness, I realize that we are all simply doing our best to make it to the next day, putting our brave faces forward. Like me. Like my grandmother. Like people everywhere.

I recently learned some things about people I thought I knew well. They have a lovely home, successful children and a solid marriage. By all appearances, they epitomize the American dream. On the surface, theirs is a good life. Beneath the surface are challenges I never imagined, struggles I never conceived and battles with no end in sight.

Had I known more about my grandmother, I might have made a greater effort to spend more time with her. Had I known more about my friends when I first met them 30 years ago, I might have been more thoughtful about the things I said, things I now know were inappropriate or hurtful.

We can’t possibly know everything about everyone with whom we share our lives. And yet we take so much for granted, assuming that if I’m OK, so are you.

I never heard my grandmother speak her truth, but I think it’s fair to say that she was not alone in keeping the most concerning parts of her life to herself.

Did it make a difference in our relationship? I’m not sure. But now that I know these things about her and others, there are some things of which I am certain.

I am certain that empathy matters.

I am certain that we should never take anything for granted. Things are not always as they appear.

I am certain that no matter a person’s history or situation, that kindness, above all else, to those we think we know and those we meet make our lives and the lives of everyone we touch better.

If the world is needlessly cruel, then perhaps we can be intentionally kind.