Why was Hedy Page so happy?

I see the news on TV the same as you, so did she:

Bombs drop, flames sear. Concrete crushes men, women, and children.

Does the reason matter? Does it matter from which side the fury came?

Power, vengeance, fire, and fury.

The same sorry saga, through millennia. Each side cheering the “success” against the “enemy.”

An alien would think we humans were all lost. Maybe we are.

But we are finding our better path.

In my three hundred essays, I’ve come upon so many of you who shine a brighter light on humankind. You just don’t get the attention of fire and fury.

Eric (Pagremanski) Page refused to hate. But only my most faithful readers would recognize his name. He wasn’t a serial killer; he didn’t bomb human dwellings.

That’s the way it is for you peace-loving souls out there. All you might get is a few closing minutes of “In good news tonight…”

Eric’s wife, Hedy, told me about his time under the Nazis: “Eric’s mother died in a concentration camp. And the one terrible thing he couldn’t speak about was that his mother saw him behind barbed wire. And she waved at him. And he couldn’t get to her. Because at that moment the guard threw her down and began to beat her.”

The Nazis killed his mom.

But Eric still refused to hate. He didn’t want to bring more hate into our world. His wife, Hedy, was so touched by his wisdom that she carried his words on long after he died.

Hedy Page died this past February, and planet Earth went a bit into retrograde.

Hedy wrote in her goodbye letter: “I belong to the vastness of clouds and oceans, and inside everyone I see.”

She is inside me.

When I first met Hedy, I was enraptured by her face, her smile, her celestial radiance.

I felt as many of you feel when you meet such a soul— there was just something about her.

Sometimes I feel like an Earthbound James Webb Space Telescope, spotting evolved souls like Hedy as they traverse our tiny blue planet. They seem to go within and bring out the best in themselves to make Earth a better place.

Hedy was both chronologically old—and spiritually well seasoned. I wrote about our first encounter here. She invited me and my sweetheart to her home.

As we sat and chatted, sometimes Hedy painted,

or drew with a pencil.

With Hedy’s permission, I recorded much of it. To hear her now, my brain smiles.

Hedy recalled our first meeting, “The sun was shining, and you were so friendly. You were interested in what I did. Immediately, our friendship began.”

She added, “The universe knows when two people must meet each other.”

Such souls do meet, and when they do, they connect with each other, and on it goes, like connecting neurons in a baby’s brain. It builds a united and effective whole.

As I grew to know Hedy over just a few years, I found that her connection with Eric was also a radiant, celestial event.

Hedy told me that Eric “was an old soul.” She said he was liberated from Dachau on May 5th, and since then, he has considered May 5th his birthday. He told Hedy, “That’s the day we celebrate.”

The day Hedy and I met was May 5th. Was this some kind of celestial wink?

Hedy was already a giving soul before she met Eric, but his influence expanded her innate goodness.

It was Eric’s evolution toward universal goodness that moved Hedy. His ability to refuse to hate, even those who put him in a concentration camp.

Even those who killed his mother.

Hedy said, “We went back to Germany, and back to the concentration camp where he had been liberated. I always wanted Eric to learn to cry, because he couldn’t cry…And when we had seen the ovens, we had seen the buildings, everything, I said, Eric, do you feel anything? And he said, ‘I’m so happy; I never thought I would walk these streets. And now I’m free.'”

Eric rejected hatred of any kind. “He didn’t want to even associate with people who hated,” she told me.

Hedy said, “Our best friends when we lived in Oceanside were our neighbors, who were Germans, of the same age as Eric’s time. They had been in the Hitler Youth. And they were wonderful people. One of them said, ‘How could you be good to us? How could you be a friend after what we’ve done to you?’ And Eric said, ‘But you didn’t. If I would hate people just because of the group they come from, then I would be just like them.'” 

Hedy recalled Eric saying, “Someday none of us will exist, and all the world will know about this period of time as slavery and the Holocaust, and they won’t know who we are.” Eric said, “Let’s change it; let’s do a painting that will tell the story of all these people who did kind things.” 

And so Hedy painted 93 oil paintings of thousands of people she knew to be good.

Hedy’s first street painting:

Hedy’s 93rd and final painting:

It now hangs over the Long Beach, NY City Council chamber:

All of Hedy’s paintings can be viewed with annotations here at Hedypagremanski.com

Hedy encountered another evolved soul, Milton (Mickey) Burglass. Burglass was a former inmate turned PhD and Founder of Thresholds, which counseled prisoners.

Yes, Burglass was a soul who knew we trekkers of planet Earth could create the future we need. He nourished Hedy, Eric, and their daughter Joanie.

Hedy said, “Eric worked so easily with people in prison, counseling them, because they understood that he knew what they knew about prison.”

Joanie went on to become the CEO of the Fortune Society. That well-established society helps prisoners reenter society for a successful future.

Hedy’s son Ken, became a psychotherapist who helps so many people in so many ways.

How many lives, one at a time, were changed through the Page’s work?

Mickey Burglass, who so inspired the Page family, had wisdom to offer prisoners and all of us: “You are not a bit a player in someone else’s movie…not just a passenger, but an active participant…hooked up to something that has no beginning and no end…part of the process… able to create the future.” 

Hedy supported and energized Cheryl and me; she said, looking at Cheryl:

“We are miracles. Look, look how you use your hands… Think of that. Those hands… can make those beautiful little leather purses and so many other things…Those hands can hug Lee.

Lee built a career without needing what everybody needed at the beginning: a publisher and a printer.

And I did that with my painting, with my work. And… it came out of sitting on a street corner.”

Hedy loved diversity and was averse to segregation in whatever form. She spoke at Long Beach and Oceanside schools to tell her story of survival under the Nazis. She told me how happy she was to see “so many students with shiny faces of all colors.”

Yesterday, with our pooch Scout, I passed Hedy’s house, which is being prepared for new owners. I looked at the porch where she drew her sketch of me. I wanted to go up and see that porch one last time, but Scout refused.

Hedy’s son Ken came out, and we chatted about this essay. He gave me this note from a student Hedy touched, possibly for life:

Hedy painted the Green Market at Union Square on Sept 11th. The Twin Towers rose in the background.

She witnessed vengeance: souls crushed under concrete, human beings set aflame, or sent hurtling to their deaths.

She edited the initial drawing.

She said, I went back to the original pencil drawing, erased the World Trade Center, and now the people of Union Square were shadowy mourners.”

Hedy said, “After all, we are part of both worlds, and the painting and the pencil drawing are meant to speak for both.”

Hedy also spoke with videos on YouTube in her Mondays With Hedy show. She would draw or paint and share her wisdom.

I see, again and again, souls nourishing souls.

Please click in the search bar at the top of this page and type words such as joy, heart, pain, power, passion, or compassion. See the stories of people just like you, good people who don’t make news as easily as fire and fury. But you connect, and you build a better path for humankind; a path of a universal imperative.

Hedy believed so much in the work of the universe. She often spoke of her granddaughter Jesse’s saying: “Nothing in the universe dies; it just changes form.”

From Hedy’s letter to her son Ken, found after her death:

“I love living so. There are times when the joy of it bursts out of me like a bubble. Times when the glory of something I see or hear makes me feel as if I had no boundaries, and as if I belong to the vastness of clouds and oceans, and inside everyone I see. This is the part of me that I would like to will to you. When I am no longer in my body, do not place my spirit mentally into the grave. Do not see me lying in a grave when you think of me. I will not be heavy earth. I will not end.”

At the Shiva for Hedy, Joanie shared Hedy’s last moments with me.

Hugging Joanie’s hand, Hedy said, “I’m going, I’m going, but I’ll always be here.”

Joanie captured a picture of peace.

Hedy was full of hope for humankind and happiness in her art. It was so evident to us as she worked.

Hedy loved my humble blog essays. I loved Hedy’s art—and Hedy. As did Cheryl.

I will always remember her voice when drawing what she called my “thinking eyes, not talking eyes.”

Hear Hedy as she worked here:

Hedy lives on in so many,

through so many.

Be well,

Leebythesea

See my darker side photo essays about life beneath the streets of New York, Wherethesundontshine