The last year of my own life has been a living hell. The depression, the sadness, the desire to just end it all and see what comes next is powerful. If I give up, they, whoever they may be, will win, and I don’t want that to happen. Maybe by sharing this, my survival would bring light into the world and save someone else.
4 May 2024, Las Cruces, NM, Steven Zimmerman – Life is depressing enough without watching the news and digesting what corporate control insists upon as truth (writes the guy who is also a reporter for an independent newspaper). It’s a struggle with depression, and for some unknown reason, I find myself spiraling out of control with depression, sadness, and desperation.
I don’t understand hate. I don’t understand wanting to kill someone because of a different religious belief. For example, I don’t know why members of my family hate me for simply becoming a Catholic.
I don’t understand why there is so much hate and animosity in the Middle East and why everyone just can’t find some common ground and start from there.
I don’t understand injustice and those who resist justice and equality. I don’t know how my fighting the good fight can hurt good people while the wicked are praised and promoted.
I don’t understand much, but what I do understand is trying to find a reason to continue, move on, and not give up. Finding a reason is not easy, and that’s why I repeatedly refer to the conversation I’ve attached to this article.
It’s three in the morning. Outside, it’s cold, dark, and overly quiet. Within moments, you are awoken by the sound of your door being kicked in. It’s German and SS soldiers.
You’re pulled out of bed. You and your family are pushed down your hallways, punched, and kicked the whole way. An SS officer tells you to grab your things and report to the square below. You’re given five minutes.
What to take? Where are you going? What’s happening?
You’re pushed onto trucks and driven to a train station in the dark. The Ghetto is being closed.
You are crammed into a cattle car with barely any room to draw a breath. It’s cold and dark, and the ride goes further and further into the country.
The train stops. Doors slide open, and people wearing striped clothes push ramps up to the doorway of the cattle car. You are created by chaos.
More yelling, screaming, running, family separation – you’ve arrived at Auschwitz.
You’re now bereft of all hope.
We are all familiar with the events and tragedies of the Holocaust. If the world had its way, we would again be rounded up into Ghettos and Camps. We would be removed from society, from the world. What hope do we have today?
Before her death, I spoke with Eve Mozes Kor (may her memory be a blessing). I wanted to know how she found hope then and how we can find hope today.
Her advice is even more relevant for us today than it was when I recorded this interview.
“There is a lot of hope in the world,” Eve told me.
“There are two ways of looking at it. When a person, when I was between life and death,” begins Eva. “I don’t think that the word is hope. The word is that I was not going to die. I never, ever, from the moment I saw the first dead body, I have made a silent pledge that I will not die.”
To stand there, just off the trains, and pledge to live is powerful. We must make that pledge today to ourselves, our families, and our community.
“And that is an interesting thing because you can put in your,” started Eva. “I get up every morning, the last few years, and I say, wow, I am still alive. That’s pretty good. Now, let’s see what I’m going to do. And what I’m going to do is always put something positive in my mind. So, you can call that hope, but I am calling it more than hope.”
What she does is find a reason to live.
Today, we need a reason to live, thrive, and bring light into the world. It doesn’t matter if we are called all manner of things. We require that reason to live.
The last year of my own life has been a living hell. The depression, the sadness, the desire to just end it all and see what comes next is powerful. If I give up, they, whoever they may be, will win, and I don’t want that to happen. Maybe by sharing this, my survival would bring light into the world and save someone else.
“What I really think, instead of putting hope, is that I would say that I am not willing to give up on my life or my happiness,” said Eva. “And that thought always keeps me going. I am an unbelievable optimist. I always am convinced in my heart that things will turn out okay. That doesn’t mean that always they have, but I believe that they will.”
I’m going to believe I’ll get past this depression and the madness the world has to offer. I’m going to find a reason to live just one more day. If you can do it, I know those of you who feel the same as me can do it, too.
I invite you to listen to Eva’s conversation. We can learn quite a bit.
