Because of Rob, who asked for a blog post today about something unexpected

I just watched Henry Louis Gates, Jr's new series on PBS, Faces of America. It's a geneology project taking twelve well-known Americans as its subjects. (It's good; you should watch it.)

Mike Nichols said something interesting tonight. He found out that certain Russian great-uncles of his were killed (one was tried and shot the same day) and he didn't know anything about them, that they'd ever existed. They talked about guilt and Mike said basically that it was no different than the guilt over all the rest of it - the not knowing and everyone being killed. "But the only thing you can do with guilt, other than bury it, is to do something worthwhile, make something good from it." (quote approximate) He called himself a putz for ever complaining about anything because he is just so lucky to be here, to have survived, when so many people didn't. It is so unlikely to have all possible events allow him to make it here and live that he should never have complained about anything.

And it's true - it is so unlikely that all of my great-grandparents (and their parents, etc) were able to survive, and then make it out of Europe around the turn of last century. For me to be here now is just lucky.