“What Am I To You?”
Tomas (Kulka) visited my dreams again. He seemed happier than normal . He said he was happy to see me. He said “Are you feeling better?” I told him I was a little better. “Do you have a husband?” He asked. “Yes, I do- you know that,” I replied. We walked down a road. We reached a park. He started running towards the swings. I followed him to the swings.
“Sit! We Talk!” I sat next to him on one of the swings. “I’m glad you didn’t lose yourself- I’m glad you’re better!” He said as he started swinging. I didn’t swing, I just sat there. “Tomas-” I tried to ask. He stopped swinging.
“I know what you want to ask- and it’s hard being 7 years -old for a long time. I’m just glad I didn’t die alone- that’s why I say don’t lose yourself. You don’t want to die- I promise you- you’ll have a beautiful life! I know you will! Swing! It’ll be fun!” He said. I started swinging, but Tomas noticed my face.
“You’re sad- Why? You’re ok!” He asked. I told him that I feel like sometimes I’m hitting a wall to reach out to people. He stopped swinging.
“It’s ok- sometimes technology isn’t always reliable. It’s ok- you feel like you’re going back to that awful place? Please! Don’t be where I am!” He pleaded. I looked at him- he knew I was desperate.
“Please -don’t be where I am-cause you’ll be ash- that’s -you’ll just be-it’s scary! I hate being dead!- You don’t wanna be!” He said. He got off this swings and he came over to me and held my hands.
“All I am is a distant memory. Don’t be like me and be one.- Please! Your mind can be mean and say awful things that aren’t true. I know it’s hard sometimes, but, please don’t listen to the lies it tells” He said. I began to cry.
“Hey! Please! You need to be here for your lover and your children!” He pleaded. I stopped crying. I looked at him funny. Children? I said, “I don’t have children.” He looked at me like “Yeah you do!”
He said “Yes you do!” I looked at him, again with concern.
“No, I don’t,” I told him. He was convinced he was right.
“YES YOU DO!” He said. I said, “Tomas, I’m not pregnant, I don’t have children,” I said. He took one of my hands and he placed on his chest, nears his heart.
“Then what am I to you?” He asked, and he got real serious. I knew he wasn’t my child, and I knew I wasn’t his mother.
“You say you love me, right?” He said, almost in tears.
“Of course! Yes!” I said.
“You say you care about me, don’t you?” He asked.
“Yes, of course, I care about you so much!” I said.
“You love me as if I were your own child!” He cried. I knew where he got that. Bill Orlin, a Holocaust survivor, who volunteers at the Holocaust Museum I volunteer at, came to me one day, and said, “ You talk about these kids as if they were your own children!”
Then Tomas squeezed my hands tight.
“Please! Stay for us! Because if you go- then what does that mean for us? We’re lost! We won’t have a voice anymore!” He replied, then he took his hands and placed them on my face.
“Listen! Please!- You are worth it! We will not let you get to our place! Never! You are needed here! Really!” He said.
He then began to cry, hugging me. “You’re a good kid,” I said.
“You’re a good person too- just believe it!” He said.
Someone once asked me, what it took for me to get to that awful place. I replied, “Not much. You just ignore me, or you are horrible to me, to the point of where taking my own life is a viable option.”
I know Tomas is trying to save my life and I know a lot of them are. I appreciate it. I know they think I don’t, but I work extremely hard on my mental health. As an autistic woman, it’s harder for me to accept things, I cannot change. For an example, when my health got so bad last year, to the point of where I almost took my own life several times, I just felt that if I were to leave, things would just be normal. But to these kids, and these people, who I see when I sleep (now, they do not show up constantly, only when my brain is going to a bad place, and they are trying to stop it from getting so bad as it once was), are trying to show me that I have so much going for me, and these people who are making me feel this way, are as Deanna Durbin put it, “Miserable people.”
Tomas, was only seven when he died. He was gassed. He didn’t get the chance to grow up, me, I did, and I’m still growing. He doesn’t want me to throw my life away, because he knows that he means that much to me, and so does that Holocaust museum that I volunteer at every Tuesday. I know what he said about children was a little confusing, so let me explain:
When I talk about Tomas Kulka, or the other Jewish teens or children I talk about them in a personal sense, meaning, I give them life, I say “They like this” or “They liked that.” I talk about them, as if they were still here, and people notice that. So, that’s when Bill said “I talk about them as if they were my own children,” and I’m sure Tomas picked up on that. To me, they are very special to me, and they are my driving force for what I want to do in life.
But, there are so many days, that I feel like I don’t matter and what I do, doesn’t. I am getting the help I need, but I struggle with my own self, my own sense of beliefs, my sense of God, or the fact that I don’t ever fit in anywhere. I try to fit in somewhere, and when it seems like they get notice of me, I am kicked out. I know that when I’m at that Holocaust Museum, I feel like I am accepted, for what I am, a Jewish woman who needs to give these Jewish teens and children another go at life, through me.
I am not special by anyway means, I mean nothing, I am nothing, but to these kids, I am something worth fighting for. I remember Bill telling me that these kid’s spirits, I can feel because I have that empathy and he suggested that I let them go through me, because that’s a gift he hadn’t seen in a long time. Like I said, I’m not special, I just care a lot about people that I feel like need a voice.
I have the mind of a teenager (my brain stopped growing at the age of 16, sadly, it’s still there) and I think that’s why the teens and children of the Holocaust scream at me the most. I’ve been called awful things and I’ve had to explain why Tomas Kulka adorns my diary cover. I carry him with me and he reminds me everyday, that I know my life is going to be hard, but he would rather me get help, and be with the ones I love, than see him on what he called “His side.” Sadly, in one of my dreams, I saw how he died, and how he was crying as he died, calling out for his mama. Was I in there with him in that gas chamber? Yes, but I wasn’t dying, he was.
But for me, these kids, including Tomas have been saving me from myself this week and I know they have. So are they my “children?” Sure. Let’s say they are, and I will protect them until I myself cannot anymore.
