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In 1978, at the age of seven, I was kidnapped and tortured for an
entire year. Ten years later I would fall in love for the first time.
At twenty-one I would turn the tables and confront my kidnapper. Seven
years after that I married my soul mate. In 2001, we would separate,
driven apart by our individual battles to discover ourselves. At thirty
I began writing a long letter to my wife. The letter, which I never
sent, marked the first steps on a journey to the center of my soul.
In tracing my roots I inadvertently became the bearer of my grandparents'
tales of survival in the Nazi death camps. My grandfather was sent
to the camps because he was Jewish; my grandmother because she was
a seventeen-year-old Christian girl working with the Greek underground.
At seventeen she was captured, interrogated, and tortured for six
months. She never broke. Had she, an entire village would have been
slaughtered. Three years later, in 1945, she walked out of Ravensbruck.
I looked back to understand that I was empowered by Faith, motivated
by Hope, held together by my Greek family, and emboldened by my
grandmother's undaunted spirit and her timeless anecdotes. My Yiayia's
divine gift to see the motivations in men's hearts, to unmask the
past and spy the future in the coffee grinds of a Greek coffee cup,
altered my perceptions forever.
I lived a life through her cups. And now, for the first time,
at thirty-two, I have tasted freedom.
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Whenever visiting a Greek family like mine, remember
these simple rules:
Eat whatever food is offered. Never refuse. And Never, Ever, Nibble or
pick at what is on your plate. To my grandmother, we all call her Yiayia;
if she caught you nibbling at the appetizers she would not think you were
on a diet she would immediately assume that you were malnourished and
starving. Yiayia would take it upon herself to restore your health. She
would watch you eat plate after plate until you glowed with a distended,
blood-pressure red complexion.
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