The Famiy Curse

As a young adult, I found out that there was a family curse, one that possibly lead to the death of my paternal grandmother years earlier.  I was shocked!  A family curse?  My mind raced off to the literature I read (minimal at that point), comic books (which I did read) and cartoons (go Bugs Bunny), and had the immediate vision of either a twisted, wart covered old hag or some robed old wizard with a long pointy beard and a pointy hat covered in stars, from the “old country”, casting a hex upon our family.  Based on my facial contusions, my parents continued that my grandmother had diabetes, inherited from prior generations.  The “spell” on me was broken, popped like a pin pricking a balloon.  While diabetes is serious, I was confused as to why this was a secret, cast under a dark cloud, and only mentioned in hushed voices behind closed doors when no one could hear you.

There are many thought leaders that point out the best way to motivate someone is through love or fear.  Love gives us that warm, welcome feeling of belonging and connecting with others.  Fear raises the fight or flee instincts buried within us and makes us do things to protect ourselves, binds us together against a common enemy and then we can step back and think about it afterwards.  As I am sitting here with some statistics, I am amazed at the capacity of fear.  For example, as of May 3, the United States had 32 million confirmed cases of the flu, which resulted in 18,000 deaths.  If I came to you and said that globally, 100,000 caught something, 3400 died from it, and only 100 confirmed case in the United States (at that date) – which would be the bigger concern?  Obviously the one with the larger statistics should be of utmost concern.

Getting back to my family curse.  As my parents explained to me, in the early 1900’s, pushing further back to small town (shtetls) in Europe, Diabetes was a fairly unknown disease, who’s consequences were deadly.  It was this broad unknown that people felt was brought upon by the evil eye.  Yes, that meant that I came from a group of people that were superstitious (red bendl under the crib, stupid piece on the challah, etc. superstitious), and attributed bad things to things done wrong.  While we understand Diabetes today, there was a point in time where my ancestors did not, so they assumed it was a curse.  Yes, when faced with the unknown, we tend to fear what we do not know and our fight or flight instincts kick in.  The key today is to maintain healthy practices (which you should do anyway), like washing your hands, using your cough / sneeze pocket, instead of coughing or sneezing into your hands, and stay home if you do not feel well.  While we face this current health crisis, it is important that we follow valid health sources (not politicians and newspapers) and maintain a level head.  Be assured that this too shall pass as we become more educated and no longer feel that dark cloud hanging over our heads.