The last time I saw Joe, I was with my family, eating, greeting, telling stories about this and that. After a few days, I noticed that if my Uncle Joe wasn’t at work, he was always with my Aunt Esther, his children, his grandchildren, or his dog. Curious, I thought.

So, I asked him, “Joe. Don’t you have any friends?”

Joe looked up, leaped to his feet, and said. “Come.” I followed him to the back of the house. He hopped on one bicycle, pointed to another bicycle, and said, “You want to meet my friends, I’ll show you my friends.” Then he began to pedal up the road. I leaped on the second bike and I followed him.

Joe was like a little gnome with a big dent in a high, furrowed brow. His wife, my Aunt Esther, had come to him from a tumultuous past. Born one of 13 children in Lachine, Canada, she survived her siblings (boot camp for adulthood), joined the military for a brief stint during the war, and then somehow landed up in California with three children, married to an abusive, alcoholic husband. With a lot of help (my parents, her brothers and sisters), funds were accumulated, and Esther sailed across the Atlantic with her offspring to become members of Degania B, a Kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee.

Beautiful setting to start a new life.