I Am What I Am Today

I Am What I Am Today

Do you ever think about the people in your life, and how they have helped you become who or what you are, today?  At eighty-four years, there have been plenty of people who helped to shape me into the woman that I am today.  Some women.  Some men.  My mom, of course.  And, sister Clara.  Larry, particularly.  Claire Knox, the town’s head librarian in the town where I lived until I went to college.  Henry Fukuhara, Pomona Hallenbeck, and Marie Ungemah – all mentors for my watercolor.  Denise Vega, my writing coach.  I think, however, that there is one person in my life whose presence definitely made me the competent student that I became and continued to be through high school and college.

At that time, he wasn’t even a man.  Only an eighth grade student.  New to the country, actually.  My family had moved into a house on the east side of town; my new school would be Risley Junior High (we called them junior high and not middle school, in those days).  I was an eighth grade student at the time – a NEW TO THE SCHOOL eighth grade student.  If I looked at my report cards from before that grade (one would assume that I could find those report cards), I know the marks would show a student with passable grades.  But, meeting Eric Cahn changed all of that!

My eighth grade school year was at the end of World War II.  The atrocities that occurred as a result of that war don’t need to be relived here.  Except to say that Eric was a survivor of them.  He and his sister had been sent to my town to live with their grandparents.  His mom was lost to Auschwitz; his dad was the parent who sent him to America.  I cannot even imagine the horrors that this child experienced before he came to the U.S.

Neither can I imagine being sent away from a parent to live in a foreign land with grandparents I hardly know.  Thousands of miles away from any other family that I know.  Dumped into a school with classmates who do not know me, needing to learn the language of this new country.  How does a child endure these happenings?

But, endure them, he did.  And, grow.  He learned to speak perfect American English.  He was one incredible student.  Interestingly enough, I remember Eric in eighth grade, only.  After that, not at all.  Until, today, when I woke to hearing him being introduced when he had been interviewed for the CPR program, Colorado Matters.  Eric died a couple of weeks ago, at the age of eighty-four.  (My age, by the way – no wonder we were in the same grade in junior high.)

Because his grandparents were not able to care for Eric and his sister, they both spent time in an orphanage.  We still had orphanages, in those days.  He was asked during the CPR interview what the orphanage was like; he said it was excellent.  As a result, he met people who helped him become the person he was as an adult.  He attended Denver Public Schools; attended college in Boulder.  And, he became an accountant who helped people plan their retirement.  After he retired, he continued to speak to students about the holocaust.  That it DID exist.  That he, his sister, and his father, unlike his mother, were survivors.  Clearly, he grew into a fine man.  A family man.  A great citizen.  I am happy to have known him, ever so briefly, and not at all well.

But, I said that he helped make me into the competent scholar that I am.  As kids, we really had no true understanding of that horrible war.  Just what we’d seen in the news reels at the movies.  Of course, we didn’t have graphic scenes that we see on today’s television.  Kids are mean.  Or, cruel.  Or, disinterested.  Or, whatever the proper adjective might be.

And, here was this kid that we knew was from Germany.  We had no understanding of his history – or even his current situation with his grandparents.  And, no one helped us understand.  I also suppose that as pre-teens, we had some understanding of what Germany stood for during the war; that may have colored our thinking about anyone who was German.  As it colored some people’s thinking about all Japanese.  We did know, however, that he was in the process of learning English.

What I remember most about Eric is that he was getting the best grades in class – better than anyone else in my class – including me.  I have a competitive streak.  I never really liked that anyone could get better grades than I.  Even though, as I said, my report card grades to that point were really only passable grades.  No “F” or “D.”  Just passable.  But, I made up my mind (and God will have to forgive me for this) that no kid from Germany was going to get better grades than I could – an American!.  My grades improved, dramatically, from that point on.

The rest of my junior high grades and all of my high school grades were excellent.  In fact, in a class of 333 senior students, my ending GPA was the thirteenth highest in my class.  I received a scholarship to Western State (College at that time; now, a University).  I worked from the time I was sixteen at the public library and was mentored by the head librarian, who helped me receive a grant from one of the local banks.  She knew the president of the bank; well, she knew almost every prominent person in my city.  In college, my only grade of “D” was in World History (I hated studying World History).

I remember many times, as a grown up, reciting this story about the boy whose grades had such a powerful effect on my own.  That my school success had been in large part due to the presence of this “boy from Germany.”  As an adult, Eric lived in the metropolitan area where I have lived for years.  I often thought that I should make a contact and see him.  We were, after all, classmates.  But, I did not.  And, now, I am sorry.  Eric died on September 9, of this year.  Now, I will not be able to make such a contact with him.  And, I am so sorry.

So, here’s to you, Eric Heinz Cahn!. I apologize for not finding you in our grown-up lives.  I owe a great deal of the success of my life to you.  Thank you!

To my readers:

Be Safe and Be Well

The Cranky Crone

Thoughtful comments are appreciated.

NOTE:  If you would like to know a bit more about Eric’s miraculous survival and life in the U..S., you may go to the Colorado Public Radio interview, “Denver Holocaust Survivor ‘Angry’ With Trump Over Charlottesville Comments.”

 

 

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