NOVEMBER 7 • 2024 | 23

“It’s a safe space to connect with 
others who truly get it,” she says. 
“People who’ve walked this same 
path. Sharing, listening and knowing 
you’re not alone can be so powerful.”
Last is the workbook, which 
has served as Marcus-Paddison’s 
personal toolkit for navigating 
what she calls a “new reality.” The 
workbook includes exercises that 
provide ongoing support.

OTHER PATHS TO 
FULFILLMENT
Yet Making Meaning After Infertility 
doesn’t intend to help people make a 
decision.
“I really wanted this to be for 
people that were definitively at 
the end of their fertility or family-
building journey,” Marcus-Paddison 
says. “This is not a program for 
people that are still in the process 
of determining whether or not they 
want to try more treatments or 
consider other options.
“This is really for people that 
are saying, ‘OK, I’m not going to 
be a person with children,’” she 
continues.
However, Making Meaning After 
Infertility offers more than healing 
from grief.
The program also guides people 
through setting boundaries 
internally and externally, such 
as with loved ones who may not 
support the decision to stop the 
pursuit of family.
Many factors go into the choice, 
Marcus-Paddison explains. Financial 
stability, work-life balance, and 
even the impact on relationships or 
one’s health can play a major role in 
ending the fertility journey.
For this reason, Making Meaning 
After Infertility confronts greater 
societal expectations and, for some, 
what may have been a lifelong dream 
since childhood to one day become 
a parent.
“We really work to challenge 
this false notion that parenthood is 
the only path toward fulfillment,” 
Marcus-Paddison says. “There’s 
no judgment here. These decisions 
aren’t made lightly.” 

R

ebekkah Bowen always 
envisioned herself pursuing 
STEM education in college, 
but a chance encounter with 
Holocaust studies took her career 
path in a different, rewarding 
direction.
Bowen, who now works as a 
content specialist at Zekelman 
Holocaust Center, took an accelerated 
humanities course in 2018 during her 
senior year at Livonia High School.
She was encouraged to read 
Holocaust literature like Night and 
Maus. Her teachers also placed an 
emphasis on experiencing different 
cultural institutions, like the 
Zekelman Holocaust Center.
“Before traveling to the museum, 
we had thought-provoking 
discussions on the diverse 
experiences of Holocaust victims 
and survivors, and the unique ways 
individuals chose to cope with their 
trauma,” Bowen recalls.
It was one of several moving topics 
addressed by longtime museum 
volunteer and docent Joanie Climie, 
73, who later gave Bowen and her 
classmates a tour of the Zekelman 
Holocaust Center.
Climie “treated us all with the 
utmost respect and held a genuine 
curiosity for our own knowledge of 
the Holocaust,” Bowen, 24, recalls. 
“She held engaging conversations 
with us about the literature we read 
and, of course, was able to teach us 
many new things.”
Inspired by Climie’s tour, little did 
Bowen know their paths would cross 
again just six years later.
“Coming here and having that 
experience at a cultural institution 
where I got to see people who cared 
about the work, cared about the 

history, cared about presenting that 
to different audiences and carrying it 
on, it definitely impacted me,” Bowen 
says.
“It allowed me to see there was a 
career in something that went beyond 
my own general interest.”
 Bowen joined the Zekelman 
Holocaust Center in 2024 after 
graduating from Grand Valley State 
University, where she studied history, 
political science and German.
Today, Bowen and Climie 
are colleagues who help ensure 
Holocaust education continues 
to pass down from generation to 
generation.
Her career at the Zekelman 
Holocaust Center allows her to work 

closely with docents like Climie, who 
has volunteered at the museum since 
2007. 
“
Although she has given too many 
tours to remember me specifically, 
Joanie was delighted to hear that 
I had been one of her students,” 
Bowen says. “Joanie continues to 
give outstanding tours and makes 
an effort to connect with guests on a 
personal level.”
For Climie, who worked in special 
education and teaching for many 
years, volunteering as a docent at the 
Zekelman Holocaust Center is the 
best way to enjoy her retirement.
Working alongside Bowen has 
allowed her efforts and passion to 
finally come full circle, she said. 

How a docent-led tour at Zekelman Holocaust Center inspired 
a high school student to pursue a career in Holocaust studies.

Ensuring Holocaust Education 
 
for Generations to Come

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Joanie Climie and 
Rebekkah Bowen

