When a Story Crosses Generations and Oceans
There are stories that begin long before us.
Before our birth, our choices, and even before we become aware that we are part of a larger story.
Some cross countries, generations, and oceans. They change language, home, landscape, and time, but remain present in who we are.
The story of Elke Franzeck is one of those stories.
A Story That Began Before Her
For a long time, Elke believed that her story of emigration had begun when she left Brazil to live in Portugal.
But when she looked back, she realized that this story had begun much earlier.
In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, her father, Paul Max Adolf Franzeck, left Germany and crossed the ocean to Brazil, carrying with him the courage and hope of rebuilding his life.
But when he left, he did not leave only a territory behind.
Family members, memories, references, experiences, and part of a story remained behind — a story that would continue to exist in the generations that followed.
This is how many family stories travel through time.
Sometimes they remain in silent things:
- a surname;
- a memory;
- a tradition;
- a photograph;
- an absence;
- a way of loving;
- what we learn from those who came before us.
Roots Do Not End When We Change Places
Years later, it was Elke’s turn to leave Brazil and build a new life in Portugal.
She has lived in Coimbra for almost seventeen years, where she built a new home, new relationships, new dreams, and a new chapter of her life.
But emigrating does not simply mean changing countries.
It means learning to live between who we were and who we choose to become.
What do we really leave behind when we leave?
A country? A home? A city?
Or do we carry all of it with us, transformed into memories, values, connections, and experiences?
Between Inheritance and Choice
Each generation receives something from the previous one.
Stories, values, affection, silences, ways of understanding the world, and also possibilities of doing things differently.
But receiving a story does not mean being condemned to repeat it.
There is also the possibility of looking at what we have received and choosing what we want to carry forward.
This was the perception that caught our attention when we discovered Elke’s journey and her book Raízes que Permanecem®.
The work begins with a personal experience, but expands into a reflection on those who left, those who stayed, and all those who discovered that the heart can inhabit more than one place.
What Remains When Everything Changes?
Changing countries can mean learning a new routine, building new relationships, and starting over.
But some things remain with us: the way we were raised, the people we love, the losses we have experienced, the encounters that transformed us, and what we choose to pass on to future generations.
A life never ends entirely with the person who lived it.
Part of it continues through the people that person encountered.
When Personal Experience Meets Care
Perhaps it is precisely because she has lived through these experiences that Elke’s perspective as a therapist has gained such a particular dimension.
Her experience as an emigrant, woman, mother, grandmother, and professional has met the stories of the people who have crossed her path.
In the book, she describes listening to parents who missed children who had emigrated, children who carried the guilt of living far from their parents, and grandparents who watched their grandchildren grow through a screen.
From this encounter between her own experience and the stories of others came the Raízes que Permanecem® Method.
It is not simply about talking about emigration.
It is about looking at what happens within us when life changes places, when a family transforms, and when we need to rebuild our lives without erasing what we have lived.
A Story That Continues
Perhaps this is the greatest strength of a family story:
it is never completely finished.
Elke’s father crossed an ocean in 1945.
Decades later, Elke took another journey and built her life in Portugal.
Today, her children and grandchildren represent a new generation of that same story.
Roots, in this sense, are not only what connects us to the past.
They are also what allows us to understand the path we have traveled.
Perhaps that is why some stories cross generations.
And some cross oceans.
Not because they remain exactly the same, but because they find new ways to continue.
A Reading That Emerges from This Story
Raízes que Permanecem® is also an invitation to look at our own roots, the stories we receive, and what we choose to carry forward.
After discovering Elke’s journey and the proposal behind her work, Mundo Reiki recommends reading Raízes que Permanecem®.
It is a work that begins with a personal experience and touches on themes that may resonate with many other stories: family, distance, longing, relationships, and what remains even when life takes us far away.
A book we especially recommend to those who have had to leave, start again, or learn to live between two places.
Raízes que Permanecem® — Terapias Integrativas Humanizadas
There are longings that make us suffer. Others remind us of the depth of love.
📖 Discover the book and learn more:
https://a.co/d/06LHZFqZ
About the Author
Elke Franzeck is an Integrative Clinical Therapist, Transpersonal Therapist, Naturopath, Clinical Aromatherapist, and Reiki Master.
Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, she has lived in Coimbra, Portugal, for almost seventeen years. She is the mother of three daughters and one son, and grandmother of three grandchildren.
Her experience of emigration, family life, and professional journey is integrated into the way she understands human beings, relationships, change, and the processes of rebuilding one’s life.
She is the author of Raízes que Permanecem® and creator of the Raízes que Permanecem® Method.
Elke Franzeck
Integrative Clinical & Transpersonal Therapist
Naturopath | Clinical Aromatherapist | Reiki Master
Creator of the Raízes que Permanecem® Method
Coimbra, Portugal
Author’s page on Mundo Reiki:
https://mundoreiki.com.br/autor/elke-franzeck/
Previous article by Elke on Mundo Reiki:
Before the Technique, There Is a Person
https://mundoreiki.com.br/before-the-technique-there-is-a-person/