Hedy Page only wants to focus on the good in the world today. She attributes her focus on kindness and love to Eric.

Hedy invited me to her home for a visit.

As I approached her house, I spotted a tiny bird, finch-like but smaller still. I tried to capture it with my phone, but it was too quick.

I soon sat with Hedy in her kitchen and spoke of life and its meaning. You know, everyday chit-chat.

At ninety-five, Hedy has often asked herself what benefit aging is to humankind. She said we are smooth, vibrant, and productive when we are young. But as we age, our skin becomes rough like the bark of a tree, and we slow down. She said she had given aging much thought lately.

She said she recently came to a conclusion as she compared herself to the sunflowers outside her home, the sunflowers the tiny bird had apparently been feasting on.

Sunflowers are a favorite of sunny Long Beach and so many other regions of our tiny blue planet. To me, they look like big smiley faces.

Long Beach, we need even more smiley faces; they brighten our days. Let Sunny Long Beach be the sunflower capital of the state. They follow the sun’s arc all summer long from Montauk to Manhattan, adding even more beauty by attracting birds. Maybe more people will flock to Long Beach for the sunflowers as they do to DC for the cherry blossoms.

Hedy spoke of how, in July and August, the sunflowers were smooth and active as their heads followed the sun’s arc across the sky.

But in October, they wither and bend away from the blue. 

Hedy said she noticed their leaves would now bend around their heads, like hands offering seeds to the birds.

Sunflower seeds are often dispered by birds which drop some of the seeds they have harvested. Also, some animals hoard and bury seeds. Both actions cause new plants to spring forward.

So also Hedy and many other well-matured humans. The alert among us garner seeds of wisdom from those bearing them. And so life goes.

Like Hedy, we all have our growing days in the sun, blooming as best we can. We may even be admired for our beauty or prominence.

Kent Almqvist, of Stockholm, Sweden, took this photo of Hedy:

But the autumn of our lives takes its toll. Our epidermis becomes rough, our gait is bent and slow, and our heads are not always up.

Many of us have seeds we’ve harvested from life we may now offer to the world. Hedy’s remarkable life experiences have formed a hub of wisdom from which we can benefit.

Hedy Page remembers the details of her childhood in Nazi-controlled Vienna:

The straw-stuffed linen pillow she leaned on at the apartment’s window sill.

The house across the street where a Nazi soldier visited, the soldier who showed such courage to help Hedy’s family.

The white-walled closet with stacks of white linen she hid in, hearing the bashing of the family’s door.

But mostly, she remembers her father’s capture by the Nazis and his miraculous return.

Hedy is the first person I have ever met who has experienced the feelings and horror of deadly persecution. One really cannot imagine a child going through such trauma.

You must be that child.

As a detective in the Warrant Squad, I went into apartments for years, taking people out in handcuffs in front of their families. These were felons wanted on warrants, but I did see the trauma on young faces.

But can you imagine today—in America: your child hearing the banging on the door, the door’s ring camera showing her the soldiers ready to take you away as the designated—enemy from within?

Let such hell be never realized.

Hedy remembers escaping to America through Panama and blossoming on Manattan’s streets, producing hundreds of drawings and paintings, street paintings filled with free people and love. Hedy thrived on New York’s Lower East Side.

And now, here before me, sat Hedy in her Long Beach kitchen.

Hedy’s smile widened as she remembered her husband, Eric.

Eric has had the most profound effect on Hedy. Although a survivor of Dachau, he would not let hatred be a part of his life: he only wanted to be near love.

Eric was a very handsome man whom many women pursued. But one day, Eric proposed to Hedy. When she asked why he chose her, he replied that he saw no hate in her. She said he told her he couldn’t be near hate; if you are close to it, you could be infected.

Hedy recalled a dinner date they had with another couple. Afterward, Eric said he no longer wanted to be with them; he sensed a hatred in them that he couldn’t be near.

Eric said he wanted Hedy to show that humankind was good despite times of the holocaust and slavery. Hedy said Eric told her, “Please show all the love in humankind through your paintings. We’ve seen so much of the horror. The future needs to see the good people in life.”

Hedy has been doing so by including people in her paintings who she knows “practice kindness, and not what the newspapers say we are.” In so doing, she helps spread kindness to the world.

Hedy said that when she first came to America, she hated it. She said in 1948, she saw segregation. She said, “I realized because of my white skin, I could go anywhere, and nobody would question me. Suddenly I was in a spot where I could do to others what was done to me during Hitler times.”

Hedy sees progress in humankind today. She and her children went to Oceanside schools. She recalls all the white students. But a year or two ago, when Oceanside High School asked her to speak to the students about her life, she said she was so pleased to see every mixture of colored skins among the students—”bright shiny colors,” she beamed.

Hedy, like Eric, only wants to be near love, not hatred. She said, “When I read the (Long Beach) Patch, I always look to see if there is an article of yours; if there isn’t, I block it out. I don’t need to know who killed whom.”

Eric was an extraordinary man. A man who suffered so much hate in Hitler’s Dachau could be forgiven if he took on hate himself. But he rose to love and kindness and cultivated it in others.

I would like to have met Eric, but I feel I already know him and others like him. Many of you know them, too. If so, perhaps you are all of the same seed.

This photo, taken by Ilene Cutler, shows the love between Eric and Hedy:

Eric and Hedy’s aversion to hate and love of kindness are excellent ways to wend our way on planet Earth. Maybe, like the sunflower, if we turn away from darkness and lean toward light—we might better unite.

We are so fortunate to have Hedy living in Long Beach. Her art and her sharing of wisdom continue; Oceanside High School will have Hedy return in the spring for another talk with students.

Hedy’s final painting, number 93, of Long Beach, will be available through Long Beach Artists in Partnership. Check with AIP for details as they become available.

Below is the painting Hedy created of kind people she met. The numbers and directory below it identify those people. If you are in the painting but are not in the directory, please notify Artists in Partnership.

I don’t think I’ll ever look at our Long Beach sunflowers again without thinking of Hedy and Eric and the wisdom they perpetuate.

This tiny blue planet needs their seeds.

Be well,

Leebythesea