Existential Dread

 I live with an expectation that something terrible can happen at any moment. One of us could be terminally ill, could die unexpectedly, could become the target of bullying, and/or could be murdered by some crazies. OK, maybe “murdered by some crazies” is not too high on my “to-fear” list, but, well, history tends to repeat itself and hate crimes are on the rise…  Shoah wasn’t so long ago. My grandparents were lucky to survive the last time around, and our family luck is bound to run out sooner or later. 

It wasn’t just luck, I suppose. It was the access to education in the USSR (my entire family is from Belarus). Basically, in my family, everyone who wanted to go to a university went to a university (big change from the Tsarist times, when the only thing my family had access to was Yeshiva for boys). So, when the war started, my grandparents (and some of their siblings) were away at universities, away from the small Belorussian towns and villages that were occupied by the German army.

Not everyone survived. My grandfather’s little sister was at a university in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad). She starved during the blockade; she almost made it… she probably would have survived if there was medical care available. She died very soon after she got out of Leningrad. Their brother was in medical school and became a military doctor after the war started – he was killed. Which brings me back to luck – my other grandfather was also a military doctor, went to that same medical school, but survived the war and made it all the way to Berlin and back. 

One of my grandmothers was in college in Moscow. My other grandmother was in college in Leningrad but went to Moscow for an internship a few weeks before the war started. Her husband, my grandfather (the one with a sister who died of starvation and 2 brothers, one an army doctor [killed] and one in the tank division [killed], was at a railway engineering college in Moscow. He was sent to Siberia to build up the infrastructure during the war. Grandmother came with him. Their first baby was born and had died in Siberia. But they both survived the war and went on to have 3 more children.

So in a way, education saved my family. But luck was a big factor. 

There were people in small towns of Belarus who survived. Some of my great-grandparents. Some of my grandparents’ relatives. Some of my parents’ cousins. Some managed to get out in time and were evacuated. And some did not (I will remember them and tell our children about them). There were people in towns who tried to help – I don’t know for sure (unfortunately, those stories are now lost) – but there were villagers who would help people hide and escape. This gives me hope for the future – even during most terrible times, there are people who are willing to help others even when it means their own lives are endangered.

I digressed. This post was meant to be about the current existential dread, not the catastrophes of the past. Is it possible to detangle to present from the past? Is it possible to dissect our fears? The global pandemic is not helping, but I can’t help wonder if the root of this ever-present dread has been seeded so long ago it has become completely entangled in our existence? Was I feeling this expectation of impending disaster before the pandemic? I can’t remember.