Generation Y documents everything about itself. Facebook, youtube, myspace, flickr, the repositories of that generation are endless. My generation has some documentation; we’ve got home movies, videos, pictures, but nothing close to what the children of Gen Y will have as they age. Most people of my generation are lucky if they know anything about more than their grandparents and maybe their great grandparents. My family did a poor job of documenting us. I have very few pictures of myself as a child growing up. I have very few pictures of my parents at any age. I have almost no pictures of my grandparents. There were no home movies or videos. Compared to most families, there is not much of Willow either.
I got in the mail today from my mother a handful of pictures of my grandmother. I don’t know anyone in the pictures other than her. I can speculate about the others. I knew she had a brother she visited regularly in California. I knew she had another brother who died, in “the war” perhaps. Not sure. I know my mother called her grandmother “Grandma Baba,” a Jewish tradition. I know they were Polish immigrants, but I don’t know what generation. Once, I interviewed my grandmother to learn about this history, but she was old and forgetful and she slipped in and out of the narrative incoherently. I know my grandmother’s maiden name was Safir. That is all I know.
Some people are obsessed with genealogy. I am not, not really. But at least I have this picture. It is something.
The Safir Family
