Game of Guiding

Posted by J on Oct 10, 2012 in J Posts | 2 comments

This is a panorama inside the greatest rest stop ever. It’s on an Austrian highway and it sold, among other things, fresh smoothies and freshly grilled pork chops. If you look closely, you can see W almost sleeping with his head down on a tray stack ….

We’ve been on the move over the last few days and we’re tired. Here are two of the more memorable quotes:

During one of two epic drives over the last two days, H shouted this as we entered Austria for the second time in 36 hours: “Weren’t we there yesterday?”

 

While J was pushing yet another point about THE TRIP and reflection and blah blah blah, W asked: “Why does it always have to be about the trip?”

W is right. It doesn’t always have to be about the trip — and we’ve had a fair amount of eye-rolling moments, including W, H, and E’s reaction to this next story. I still think it’s worth passing along:

We visited the Dachau Concentration Camp where many, many tens of thousands of Jews and political prisoners were held, overworked, and — quite often — killed at the hands of the Nazis.

This is a shot of ONE HALF of what remains of the bunk complex at Dachau. There were something like 32-thousand slaves imprisoned there when the Allies liberated it in 1945.

The museum wasn’t particularly memorable. It was raining. We had some challenging family dynamics at play. Dozens of tour guides blabbed their noisy way through the more reflective areas. It was not A MOMENTOUS moment of our lives. Still, as much of the complex remains untouched — the stink of death and pain remains.

As we left, the boys somehow started playing a game of guiding — one boy would close their eyes, another would lead them along the path back to the welcome center.

We discussed the game over lunch. I talked about how many people followed Hitler — blindly. And I explained how S and I are trying to lead the boys broadly in the opposite direction. (LOTS of eye rolling around the table.)

Then I pulled a leaf out of my jacket. It had fallen from a tree just just after I took the Dachau bunk complex panorama picture. And I shared with the family how that leaf helped me realize that LIFE and HOPE live on long after evil.

Not much reaction from the table. And we moved on.