Life

Today Jordan spent thirty minutes memorizing a poem on the Holocaust for his Anthology class. It took him thirty minutes to memorize the poem. I have to repeat that because years ago it would have taken him thirty hours to memorize a word. Our kids grow and they progress and they eventually get where they need to go..it just takes a lot of patience and guidance.

Next to the poem was an image of an emaciated Holocaust victim and the title of the poem was "If this is a man". Your basic nightmare of a poem requiring deep thought and in depth analysis of what it meant to live in the concentration camps and have your life decided by a "yes" or a "no".

We concentrated on memorizing and not analyzing, it's not exactly the perfect time to analyze Holocaust poetry here. So, Sofia was sitting on my right and Jordan was in front of me. Every time Jordan started to repeat the verses, Sofia asked a question. She is the instigator with the wicked smile. Jordan would freak out because he was struggling to get the words out, I let him struggle so if there was chaos in his class when he had to read, he would be able to get through it anyway.

Then, he reached the point where he could take it no longer. He began saying, "If This is a Man" by Primo Levi in this deep- I-might-become-a-man-soon kind of voice and my lower lip started twitching. Well, he saw it, got all pissed off and we both started hysterically laughing. So, he tried again: "If This is a Man......" Bwahahahahahahahahah- I spit out the juice and he fell on the floor.
Sofia looked at us like we were crazy then started laughing, just by looking at our faces.

The three of us laughed for a good twenty minutes, I can't remember the last time I saw my kids laugh like that- and it hurt...a lot.