Keep It Together

I am running out of steam.  I thought I handled what happened on election night, November 2024, pretty well.  Disappointed, yes!  But enough of a history buff to realize life goes in circles and cycles, right? What goes around, comes around, right?  Have a little patience, and the actors and scenery will change.  That’s the nature of the beast, the human condition.  

Maybe it’s because I am 91.  
Maybe it’s because two weeks ago my brother passed away.  
Maybe it’s because last week my sister passed away.  Maybe it’s because my identity was wrapped up in being one of eight siblings. 

Now I am the last of the original Anna and Louis Heit family.  Brethren and sistren all gone.  Leaving me in the land of the free and the home of the brave, which my father and my mother’s father escaped to from the punishing shtetles (ghettos) of Europe; Ellis Island alumni, all.  

Not everyone in my family caught the brass ring of the American dream. But everyone had the opportunity to go for it.  I’m not being purposely dumb.  Not all people had the same opportunity. This was something my Jewish family was very familiar with, but never as familiar as people of color who struggled longer and worked harder with no guarantees of success.  American history is loaded with the yin/yang of battles for freedom, justice, and equality.  For every George Washington, there was a Benedict Arnold.  For every Abraham Lincoln, there was a Warren Harding. (both Republicans)

America, the new world of possibilities, was as real for the immigrants of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as it is for the immigrants of today.

Here’s my question.

Why don’t we want to give someone the same opportunity, possibility, we or our ancestors had?  I don’t get it.  Except for the Native Americans, every American, however near or far down the line of entry, was born somewhere else… like we all are immigrants.

I may have been born here, but I am aware my roots came from foreign parts.  Over and over again, social media details the horror of citizens and non-citizens being carted away by masked men. 

How many deportations does this Administration need to achieve the right proportion of white racist voters to pass their unbelievably un-American agenda?  Am I and the other mixed bag of citizenry next on their list?

I wish I could say what’s happening is a fictional sci-fi dystopian book or movie, or television show. Unfortunately, it is all too real.

The round-up of Jew, Gypsy, Communist and other disagreeables by the Nazis of World War II was followed by train transport to specially established concentration camps for extermination.

This could never happen in the United States, right?!
If you say or think this, you are not paying attention.

Every time I am ready to holler Uncle and tune out of this mess we got ourselves into, I think about my immigrant relatives who worked hard to give me a better life.  If I caved, that would mean surrendering to a belief that our Founding Fathers' dream devolved into a nightmare.  And I just ain’t ready for that.  

And, as we are down and almost out to the count from recent events, like Eddie Murphy and anyone else who wants to join me… 

If we keep together to keep it together, we can make miracles….

Let me leave you with this…

I was 11 years old in 1945 when World War II was winding down. The sagging morale of this and other countries around the world was sorely tried and tired. Hollywood, in its typical style of old-fashioned over-simplification and brilliant cliches, hired Frank Sinatra (yes, I was a Beatles precursor screaming swooner every time I heard his vocal cords vibrate) to star in a 10-minute documentary.  It couldn’t be any more trite and cliche ridden if it tried.  But here’s the funny thing about cliches… they start as basic truths, ending up as cliches only because of overuse and abuse… sort of like the verbiage in this documentary. Try to remember it was 1945. After sacrificing too many men and women, we, the people of the U.S. of A., needed a reminder of why they had to be sacrificed.   

If you can get past the oversimplification and the omission of people of color and ethnicities, the artistry of Frank Sinatra is a wonderment.  

After the war (not the one coming up) the World War II one, when this documentary played in movie theaters across the country, people opened their hearts and doors to welcome millions of immigrants escaping the ravages of war-torn Europe.  

Because scrolling the internet in the present really depresses me, I’ve taken to searching the internet of my past.  As I did, I found this fascinating article which includes a 10-minute short film, with Frank Sinatra singing The House I Live In. 

My recent losses have shown me that people in 2025 are as capable as they were in 1945 of opening their hearts and doors to kindness and caring. 

Like Tinker Bell "All you need is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust," that’s what I believe.

SUE ME!!!

Love, Sally-Jane ❤️

P.S. Keep it together and keep your motor running. The fuel for yours, mine and our motor is LOVE. Right???  Of course, right!!!