This past December 28th, my mother would have turned 85.
She taught me how our perspective shapes our experience.
The wisdom that "perspective is everything" comes from being a survivor.
She was born in Czechoslovakia. Modern-day Slovakia.
By the age of three, she, along with her mother and father, was fleeing from the Nazis through the Carpathian Mountains and the surrounding villages.
They were never caught.
My mother was seven years old when the war ended. Random people would approach her on the street and touch her cheeks in disbelief, as most Slovakian Jewish children had not survived.
When my mother was nine years old, her family immigrated to Vineland, NJ, a town known for its chicken farming. To support her parents' efforts to rebuild their lives, she would go straight from school to the Blueberry farm and earn three cents per pint.
My mother was an immigrant and had a deep love for America.
During our many conversations, she would pause and look at me with assurance, stating:
“Dan - no matter what’s doing or how terrible you think things are. YOU DON’T KNOW. Be grateful.”
My mother passed on Feb 3, 2016.
In times of chaos, and uncertainty, or when we’re wearing our lenses of scarcity, it's the survivors who remind us that perspective is everything.