Let me introduce myself ...

I've resisted blogging for it seems like forever - but as I prepare for an upcoming momentous trip, this feels like the right time to finally jump into this. In 10 days I'll be travelling to Europe with my dad to pay our respects to my grandmother - his mother - for the first time. She died in a concentration camp in Poland in WWII, and it is only recently that we learned the name and location of the camp where she died. The past few months have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster ... this is a trip I've wanted to make for a long time, dad even longer. But as it gets closer to becoming reality, the reality of what we will face becomes more overwhelming. I'm ready for it now after months of a difficult emotional reckoning. I'm hoping that through this online journal I can track my trip as it goes, share a few photos and impressions, and come a little bit closer to making peace with a horrible, tragic piece of history.