Reverse Culture Shock

I just finished reading The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, a compelling book about a Jewish family forced to leave Egypt.

The family of six brings 26 suitcases filled with their most important belongings, knowing that they wouldn’t be allowed to come back. Among their treasures is their mother’s wedding dress.

Wow. I am constantly amazed at the lengths to which people will go to keep their dresses. If this mother managed to hold onto her dress, along with four kids, on a ship ride across the ocean, I should have been able to keep track of it in a transatlantic move with just two kids.