This My Morning Routine...

A good morning routine can really help you slam dunk the rest of the day.

You can write a ‘to do’ list.

Make a good, strong coffee.

Walk the dog or get a workout in.

Say prayers or meditate.

Read 5 pages or maybe journal your thoughts.

Perhaps avoid social media.

I don’t do any of these things, although coffee is high on my list.

I used to have a complicated, overloaded routine which, if wasn’t completed, made me feel like a failure.

Stretching, lifting weights, gratitude journal, wrestle the dog…and on and on.

My new morning is now, way more simple.

By complete accident I found this site on Twitter…or maybe it found me.

Each morning I read the tweet. It begins with a small photo of a Lazlo, a Paula, a little Monika, the entire Zimmerman family….

In haunting black & white I see fathers, mothers, young men & women, children, babies.

Scrolling, I read: 1st February 1930, a French Jewish girl, Maria Zameczkowski, was born in Paris.

In August 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz and, after selection, murdered in a gas chamber. No. 25266.

In each daily post the story is the same: a unique, unfurled life, brutally extinguished.

In that moment, in my own ceaseless silence of morning, I gaze into their eyes – scared, distant, defiant – and I say “Today, I see and remember you…..”

I start each day not by remembering a routine, but by remembering others.

Others who never had a chance.

It is by no means a pleasant practice but I feel it my duty to honour their life and not to forget them.

And not to forget how lucky I am.

Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum on Twitter.

Today I see and remember you...