Chapter I: Like An Oak Tree

In the years after her death, I uncovered an incredible archive of her life. She’d left behind boxes upon boxes of letters and photographs and diaries. There were preserved albums dating back to the 1920s and letters she’d sent to lovers. There were report cards and deportation papers and love notes from her parents censored by Nazis. Then, amidst all of these papers, I found a plain manila folder. It had a note on it, written in red ink in her shaky cursive handwriting. She’d written my name.