the way to D.C.

I leave NYC this afternoon after visiting Lilo, my 85 year old ‘aunt’ who is my only living ‘relative’ left in New York. She talks about how lucky she was to come to the United States in 1937, as a student and how she never intended to stay – but Hitler changed all that of course.

My grandmother has already told me how she met Lilo in the hospital a couple of months after Granny arrived in this country, around 1941. She said Lilo was weeping and not wanting to leave the hospital. Apparently the aunt she had come to the States to stay with had died and Lilo feared her family in Germany was dead too – which they were. Granny insisted Lilo come home to their 2 room apartment with her and they made a space beneath the kitchen table for Lilo to sleep.

Lilo tells me she is holding on but she doesn’t think it will be long now – her death she means.

I wish I had more time to stay with her, but I leave for Washington D.C. Tomorrow is International Women’s Day and we have a march and rally happening.

I get nothing but yeahs all the way down 95 to Washington D.C. Even the toll booth folks are happy to see me and comment on how horrific bush is. The offensive billboards that periodically cross the highway no longer say anything about seeing anything suspicious – in fact, they are mostly information about traffic conditions now.

I can’t wait to see Rae and Medea and Cindy – and check out how everyone is doing. Peace, sam