"It Could Have Been Me!"

Many years ago, when I was working as an art framer, I had a favorite customer -- Mr Wolfe.  Mr Wolfe did not read or write Chinese.  Yet, he could speak Shanghaiese.  It turned out Mr Wolfe was one of the Jews who fled to China during Holocaust.

Mr Wolfe was in his 70s.  He loved to reminiscent about his childhood days in China.

Mr Wolfe was a nice, friendly and kind person.  However, in his eyes, I always thought I saw some deep sorrow . . .

One day he was complaining about an immense pain above his hip.  He already took a bunch of painkillers, but they did not help.  It had been troubling him for days.  It was obvious that Mr Wolfe was in agony.  As a Reiki practitioner and bodyworker, I asked if I may feel it and see if there was anything I could do to help.

As I sat down with Mr Wolfe, my hands started heating up.   I pressed on some acupressure points on his body.  That seemed to help release some of the body tension.  While I was doing that, I could feel him draw on the energy I was channeling for him.  After a while, his body became more relaxed.  His eyebrows were no longer tightly knotted together.  His cold hands warmed back up.

Mr Wolfe slowly opened his eyes and asked me in a very low voice, "Have you ever had an experience that is so horrible that you don't even dare to share it with anyone else?"  I shook my head.  "I have.  I have been keeping something inside of me for decades.  I have not told anybody because it scares me to just think about it.  I don't think anybody needs to know something so horrible."  I could see tears in his eyes.  The Mr Wolfe in front of me was so different from the smiley old gentleman that I had always known.  Something was consuming him from the inside.

"Do you want to tell me?  Hearing it won't hurt me.  You don't have to bury it inside.  It's been so long.  Maybe it is ok to let it out now.  If it is too much for me, I promise, I will tell you to stop.  It is safe to tell me." I reached out to hold his hand.  "You sure?" Mr Wolfe asked as he wiped his sniffly nose.  "Yeah, I am a big girl.  I can handle it."

Mr Wolfe gazed into space as he recounted this incident from his boyhood in Shanghai, China . . .

It was a difficult time.  Jewish refugees were struggling to feed their families in this foreign land.  Kids were left alone to play in the streets with each other.  Sometimes they ran into Chinese kids who would play with them.  Language was no barrier to the children.  They ran and laughed together.  They didn't even know each others' names, but it did not stop them from becoming friends.

On this very day, just as Mr Wolfe was strolling along a big road with a group of Jewish and Chinese kids, there was disturbance a few yards ahead of them.  It turned out a group of Japanese soldiers was marching down the road.  There were military vehicles followed by a tank.  The foot soldiers were shoving people out of their way.  The soldiers were shouting; civilians are screaming and running.  It was very chaotic.  Mr Wolfe and his friends were really frightened.  It was very disorienting because it became very crowded all of a sudden.  With this tsunami of running adults crashing at them, the kids did not know where to go.

The Japanese tank was just a couple feet away from Mr Wolfe when he spotted a gap between two adults.  He squeezed in there and avoided the tank.  The Chines boy standing next to him was not as fortunate.  He could not withstand the push from people behind him and fell . . . into the path of the tank.  The tank rolled over half of his body.  He let out a scream very briefly and became quiet.

"His fingers were still moving," recounted Mr Wolfe, as tears streamed down his face.  "It could have been me.  We were just inches apart.  It really could have been me!"   I wrapped Mr Wolfe in my arms.  It was as if a levee inside of Mr Wolfe broke.  He buried his face on my shoulder and started sobbing away.  Mrs Wolfe stood there silently as she watched this unfold.  I suspect that she had never seen her husband cry like this.  Nobody said a word.  Everyone was frozen in this little frame shop like broken icebergs, watching Mr Wolfe helplessly.

One day, a Chinese academic who helped make the movie Shanghai Ghetto brought in the movie poster to have it framed.  Instantaneously, I knew what I needed to do.  I contacted the director to tell him about Mr Wolfe, "I hope you would let me have a poster so I can give it to Mr Wolfe.  It would mean so much to him."  

A week later, I received a tube in the mail.  The directors even personally autographed the poster for Mr Wolfe.  My boss was kind enough to provide free framing material for me to frame it up.  Mr Wolfe was delightfully surprised when he saw his gift.

This was one of the simplest yet most significant framing job I have ever done.