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Marty Herskovitz
Israel
Lesley Carstairs is a practicing transcultural nurse working with elderly Holocaust survivors. This paper explores how Leininger's Theory and Sunrise Model can help to provide care that meets a specific individual's needs.
Four Sons
At redemption there were four sons,
So too in destruction.
The wise son pours over tractates of names,
And lists of towns, too small, it would seem,
to bear the burden of its dead.
The simple son stares at photographs on museum walls,
And is visited at night by the visages of the dead,
Who awaken him with tears.
The son who knows not to ask,
Awaits the day the silence will end,
So his question may be asked.
The evil son…
In destruction there is no evil son,
Just a son who longs to be normal,
And believes that by forgetting the past,
He might be like others.
Rootlessness
My father aged 12
came to America after his family
having been left with his grandmother for seven years in Europe .
Upon his arrival he refused to kiss the unfamiliar woman
who met him at the pier,
it was his mother.
I imagine that until he got readjusted to his new family
that he felt between families, rootless.
His eyes would lose their focus every once in a while(like they did as a five- year old
trying to remember what his mother looked like).
until he forced himself to grow up quickly
and not need a mother at all.
I think about my father's legacy
wandering alone about Tel Aviv on my days off
or when walking home from the souk Friday afternoons.
Laden with bags of fruits
I stop on the benches to rest and read the paper
away from my responsibilities
When I get home my wife yells from bathroom where she is bathing our daughter
Marty is that you where did you disappear to it's almost Sabbath I'm so frustrated couldn't you have shopped last night did you hear me why don't you answer
I nod my head from the kitchen where I am putting away the cucumbers
And like a swinger of birches I ease myself down to the ground.