Director’s Notes

“When I am holding this hand I am warm. I am content. I am safe. I am happy.” — Helen (from Lynne Connor’s NINA)

We all experience loss in our lifetime. And if we are lucky enough, we get to experience love in all of its tangled forms. To love— to REALLY love we must allow ourselves to be open. And when we are open, we will also experience pain and grief. Those are realities of the life we live. But what if we are able to make a real connection between love and loss – to understand where there is loss, there is healing and where there is healing there is peace? In my most profound moments of joy, I have experienced a connection with other people—whether grounded in love or loss, it is real and certain. And just as certain are moments of hurt and misunderstanding.

In February of 1940, my mother and her family were yanked from their home in a small village in Poland. Transported on crude vehicles to a gulag near Kazakhstan by Stalin’s army, they clung to each other uncertain of what lay before them. What followed was a horrific journey that cost precious life and left deep scars they would carry throughout their lives. The memories they shared touched not only on suffering, but the impenetrable spirit that helped them survive—eventually carrying them to a better life here in the US.

I don’t remember the exact moment I learned of my family’s story. But I do remember, at the age of 6, walking to school on a breezy day in Evanston, Illinois—carrying a lunchbox adorned with images from my favorite tv show. And I remember not understanding why I could have been afforded such a luxury when—at my age—my own mother was battling starvation and the brutal realties of war. Certainly, there was not a clear moment when she sat me down to explain what happened to her. Had I overheard my family reliving these stories with their American friends? Maybe. But I do know that the feeling of loss was visceral at a very early age. And though I could not name it at that time, I was open and vulnerable to the complications that love would bring throughout my childhood.

It is only now, well into my 40s, that I have come to appreciate the safety and warmth that my mother and grandmother held so fast for the life we had here in this country. They both certainly made mistakes as parents, but they loved deeply and were loved in return, and must have felt deep relief knowing their children would grow up in more nurturing and hopeful surroundings. They are both gone from this life now. But I am grateful knowing that they allowed themselves to be open to the complexities of love and to experience the richness that life would offer them — even if just for a brief moment.

Lisa Muller-Jones