AUTUMN’S ALLURE EAT, DRINK & CELEBRATE PAGE 16 theconnectionsnj.com Are You One of the Many Currently Suffering from Trauma? Want to find a way out and begin the healing process? Ellyn’s story speaks to the joy life can bring. The Best We Could can be purchased at: bookshop.org, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, warrenpublishing.net, or ordered at most book stores. Please visit: @EllynMantellWrites Ellyn shares how she triumphed over intergenerational trauma and empowered herself to become an advocate for those with similar struggles. The Best We Could will guide survivors of abuse to discover a path to healing. About Ellyn Mantell: Ellyn has 2 beautiful daughters of her own, and she lives with her husband of over fifty years in Florida. Her other works include, So Much More than My Ostomy: Loving My Perfectly Imperfect Body (2021). She also writes 2 columns for The Connection Magazines: A Slice of Life and Senior Corner. y older daughter has wanderlust! When she was sixteen years old, she traveled to Prague and Budapest with our Rabbi, his wife, and her Confirmation class from our Temple. Their mission was to see the concentration camps, particularly Terezin, where children were held to “show” the Red Cross that the youngest victims of Nazi cruelty were well-treated. Allison grew so much from that experience and was hooked for life on the value of travel. Three years later, her sister, Emily, took a similar Confirmation trip, this time to Poland, where she went to Auschwitz and Birkenau. So moved by what she saw, Emily spoke to a friend’s 6th-grade class to share her experience. Each of my daughters then went to Australia to study during their semesters abroad. Traveling through and from there cemented their wanderlust for life…a more beautiful part of the world does not exist. I am sharing this walk down memory lane because my daughters are now parents of college students. They are at the time of their lives when they are traveling to Europe, and I foresee wanderlust in their future. Our eldest grandson, Jake, is doing a summer internship in Dublin, Ireland. He is meeting students from other colleges, and they are traveling throughout Europe on their off time. Our granddaughter, Maddie, will do her junior semester abroad in Paris this fall. Next year, Jessie will do hers in London. What a playground they will find once they settle into their new locations! Baby boomers were the first young people, I imagine, to indulge their wanderlust, having the ability to see the world. Friends share stories of “crashing” at youth hostels, backpacks full of dirty clothes, groups jumping on trains, and showing passports at the borders of new countries. My daughters are planning on traveling to see their children in Europe, this time as parents of college students. They will marvel, I am sure, at the independence, confidence, and ability to navigate new places that my grandchildren will exhibit. I am thrilled for this time in their lives, all of them-my daughters and sons-in-law, and grandchildren. And, in all honesty, I am also shedding a few tears, because it reminds me how much time has passed since my girls took their first trips without us, growing in beautiful ways. There is nothing we can do to stop time, but we should embrace the cycle of life and just enjoy it. SLICEOFLIFE Wanderlust By Ellyn Mantell My older daughter has wander
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzA2NDY0