So I have a little story to tell you.

Over a year ago, I volunteered to help on the case of a Jewish woman who was found as a toddler in an orphanage after the Holocaust. She died a few years ago having lived her entire life never knowing who she really was or where she came from. She didn’t even know her real name.

She had DNA tested, though, which gave us a path to try to find her family. But this case was complicated in multiple ways and we were repeatedly stymied. We so wanted to be able to give her daughter answers. And some sense of closure, whatever that might mean.

As the pandemic wore on, I became more determined to use whatever free time I had to try to solve this mystery. In an unbelievable twist, our first real break came the day that Trump tested positive. There was something surreal about the juxtaposition. Many texts like this one.

I found a document that I suspected gave us the name of her father. My partner in the search was then able to find additional information that seemed to confirm it. But the real proof that we had the right family could only come from DNA.

And at 7 am this past Friday, that proof arrived. I screamed. I was shaking.

Later that day we told the woman's daughter that she had two elderly aunts and many cousins eager to meet her. We all wept.

Yesterday morning we all got on a Zoom, a conversation that included people in four countries. It was nothing short of extraordinary.

These reunions are always bittersweet. They are so wonderful precisely because what these families endured was so unspeakably horrible.

I’ve said before that Holocaust reunions remind me of one of my favorite poems, by Sharon Olds.

Olds hears the news that her first love has been killed in an accident.

She writes:

“I wanted to…close myself like a door/ as you had been shut, closed off, but I could not/ do it, the pain kept coursing through me like/ life, like the gift of life.”

The gift of life. At this particular moment in time, it seems especially poignant to stop and appreciate it. With all the awful news and devastation swirling around us, it’s comforting to know there are still moments of magic to be found. /end

One footnote: as we got closer last week, I reached out to several people throughout the genealogy community to to see if we could get the answer as quickly as humanly possible. And every single person I asked for help was exceedingly kind and generous. Without hesitation.

It was beyond inspiring. One person even offered --unsolicited --to drive over an hour to make a delivery for us.

Some days it's easy to believe that there is no hope for our bitterly divided world.

But this experience showed that that there is.