A letter written by Dina Horowitz, to a woman who was lying next to her in a hospital, after the death of her baby.
(The letter was written two years after the incident)
On the side
Sunday, May 9
Greetings.
It's a little hard for me to start the letter, a letter I've actually been writing for more than two years because I'm not at all sure if you remember me. You may remember me, but I'm sure you have no idea how I remember the events we went through together, and what you were to me.
And now to what extent a circle has closed (at least in my eyes), and although I am not at all one who can write (and more in Hebrew), I felt it was time for me to write to you and share my world with you a little.
Apparently there is a great truth in what we have been taught that we do not live in a vacuum, that our world and soul are connected, and that every good deed, and even a positive thought, has a resonance somewhere.
I learned all this from you, and much more. What was yours maybe a few days when you had to spend time in a hospital, for me they would turn in my life, and you provided me with the fuel, or the glasses - in short the power to continue, and more how to continue!
It is said of the cabbage that before he was forced to give a blow, he most mercifully first created a cure for the blow. You for me were hung by the crutch, a real angel in the full sense of the word - a messenger - who in those unbearable moments in this period of my private life, you were there to pad me the blow, and in fact not to pad a blow, but to show me another side of life, another plane Of how a person lives his life.
You must be surprised and confused! And I, even though you did not know me well, I am not one to write such heavy things - not at all !!
But now I feel a kind of inner spring, from which I had to write things, and the address had to be you, so that I could finally thank you and thank you for all that you have given me, and that you also know what I feel, very consciously, for two years, and what I draw a lot of encouragement and strength.
Now I will try to refresh your memory. Do you remember that about two and a quarter years ago you were hospitalized at Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, and there was an unfortunate woman who gave birth to a baby who died from pregnancy poisoning and high blood pressure, and while she was also hospitalized it turned out that along with the baby that went, most likely to have healthy babies again. Remember? So we spent two or three days together, talking and eating together, and knitting together.
I will not forget how I met you through the door of the room, and I entered. We were both familiar to each other and did not remember where ... you sat down next to me and started telling me. And I saw in my eyes both the pain, and also the acceptance of the judgment, the sorrow and the completion, and I felt that there was a real spiritual flow. I drank your words with thirst, because I felt in the story not only the story itself and a kind of "there are worse things", not at all, but through you I peeked and saw a different reality of a life of faith and confidence (words so corny !! and insufficient !!) of accepting things , The way they come, and such a sharp and poignant ability to take advantage of every spark of a thing for good, and rejoice in evil, and give thanks for everything.
Compared to an external plane of life of quantitative, small, of "I deserve", "I have a plan so and so ..." - you have plenty of acceptance, but out of devotion and tenacity, do not let go ... and unfolded before my eyes another form of life simply a plane Another, with different scales and different rules, and I felt a strong desire to belong to it and not fall for my smallness ... I asked you not to talk anymore, that I am not able to absorb so much at once. I wanted time to digest the revelations I had learned slowly.
A few hours later I was sitting by your bed, and there was a doctor's visit, only then, and only according to their talk, did I realize that your complication is beyond diabetes you told me about, and then really Indian and told me they found a tumor, and want to operate, and described all their dilemmas and yours. And I open my mouth "You did not say anything"
All this, against the background that I cried day and night about Mr. Fateful, and talked all the time only about myself, and more about such a sensitive subject that you experienced it so hard.
And again I am amazed, a woman who is in the final stages of pregnancy enters, and talks to you, introducing her as your only sister, and during a conversation I realized that she did not come to visit you but that she will soon give birth, and "jumped" for a moment, to see you before birth.
And you tell her with a smile about your condition and the doctors' decision. I felt a blur of the senses, something close to fainting, as if Gd was conveying to me a moving film about death on the one hand, and birth and life on the other, all with a smile and acceptance, hope and faith.
I ran away from the room because I could not absorb any more. That day we were both released, and have not seen each other since. But I from that day I began to write you (in my mind's eye) a letter, and although no real connection was made, for me you were living next to me, and you continued to accompany me and help me overcome that very difficult period after the birth. What's more, I really followed you in an indirect way, and I continued to hear miracles and wonders about the birth you gave birth to at the end (without surgery), of your son N.Y., and then they took out the tumor and everything was fine.
So even though in practice there was no real connection, you were by my side and I continued to marvel at you and the message I learned from you.
Did you know all this?
I am writing to say thank you very much.
And why did I mention that the circle closed? In short, my history since: After recovering from the birth to some extent, I decided that if I was now unable to be a mother, I would return to being a daughter. My parents immigrated to Israel about two weeks after I gave birth (regardless), and I really wanted to taste the taste of a daughter in the family.
I left home at 18, and since then my parents have always been my guests, but now they have immigrated to Israel, so I could hang out with them at home, etc. But unfortunately my father passed away very suddenly, about two months after they arrived, and then I tasted the taste of mourning, a real sorrow and loss that there are no words to describe. And more to help my mother on all fronts, mentally, translation, arrangements, moving apartment, studio, etc.
Then my daughter was hospitalized urgently and suddenly - she was fine, but next to her lay sick children really with nervous and desperate parents ... and the day I brought her back from the hospital, I broke my leg, and that night all the porcelain on the kitchen wall fell (the noise was Quite impressive) - so that it suddenly seemed to me that my whole world was falling apart - even the little things - that I no longer know what to expect and what else could happen!
My brother-in-law went on reserve for 30 days, and about a week after he returned - I contracted jaundice. After I recovered, he went to the reserve again for another 30 days (it was after April 1) ... Then he contracted arthritis with fear of a complication in the heart, and then - mainly because of the financial constraint - we decided to move, and last summer we moved here, to Kiryat Arba , In short was a very difficult period of a year and a half.
Since we're here, Beya has been turning for the better. The children are happy, and especially Eli is happy with his work as a graduate of the Shavei Hebron yeshiva. The campus is a wonderful place, very special and good people, and healthy and normal social relations.
For the past two years, and especially in the ten months since we moved, I have been working on myself well and learning to see aspects of life that are sometimes a little hidden or vague because of the constant preoccupation with young children and babies, or from the physical preoccupation, , In everything related, and one hundred percent of the time I learned to detach myself from the mental pursuit and concentrate on what I have to do, in my family, in society (for the elderly, for example, I am very attracted).
I saw that children should be raised and not just given birth to. And the four buildings I have employ me and give birth to a lot of imagination and intellect, and strengths to cope, consider and educate. I learned that there should be a wife for my husband, and a man who creates and contributes in society. And the whole thought about me about births and pregnancies I pushed far, far away, and only somewhere did I leave a vacant corner full of hope, but in fact I pushed myself away from the whole issue.
And from you I learned the lesson - and that a person knows what will happen to him? And that he has control over the events of his life? After things happen to him, it is incumbent upon him to observe and make an account and interpret everything for good, but before? And that he may pretend and plan in advance what will happen to him and when?
I always hope that with the help of the name, if he wants, I will have another baby with or without blood pressure. And if not, all my efforts will be of no use, and knowing this gives a dimension of calm and serenity in my life. Of course there is nothing I want more than a baby, to breastfeed and hug, but I always told myself that I had to do what was required of me every day, and with the help of the name, either he would win me a baby or not (and I would see that as a privilege too).
And here are the days when I find myself pregnant? (How fun to write these words!) Of course it opens up an abyss of fears - how will it end? What will happen this time? And if it happens like before, will I have another chance? And maybe the doctors will decide that I should have an abortion? And maybe I will have a miscarriage anyway? (I have a tendency). I have no answer.
The next day I go to the doctor and see what he says. What I'm sure of is that I now find myself dealing with this issue again, after a great break. I feel completely different from the change I was in my previous pregnancy. I feel like I am standing firm with both feet on the ground, ready for anything that will happen to me, unconditionally. I exaggerate a bit in the self-confidence I show in the letter, things are more fluid and complicated than the unambiguous sentences I write on paper.
Of course I have ups and downs, hard days and easier days, but overall I feel like I have acquired a property for the last two years, that you have opened a path for me, and that I will never be able to lose it again.
The writing here is meant at the same time to write and tell you, and at the same time strengthen myself by the list of things on the issue. This!!
I pretty much finished my story.
You must be shocked. And I feel I have repaid a debt and taken off a yoke.
I hope the things I have written will make you happy and find you healthy and happy, you and your whole family!
All the best,
And again thanks for everything ...
N. B. Now I'm undecided whether to send it now, or save and send after things clear up or maybe never ...
* Continuation of the letter, written a few days later.
On the eve of Jerusalem Day
Peace,
Indeed, what routine comes to me. After the day I invested in writing the letter to you, I went through a week of visits to doctors and all sorts of inquiries about "Am I allowed to continue my pregnancy or not?" .
In the end, such a picture became clear: that I can be prevented from reaching a state of mental supervision, but the chances of the pregnancy being successful are not good. There is a possibility that I will reach the end of nine months and give birth to a healthy baby without any complication, but there is a possibility that I will leave empty-handed like the previous time, and there is also a possibility that I will give birth early and have a defective child.
For me it was good news. You can try and get pregnant. No doctor told me that I must stop, and I wished I had the mental strength to go through all the trials that await me, and that I would know how to accept in full any result I would have in pregnancy, whether God would grant me one way or another ...
I only had a few days to think about it, until on Lag B'Omer the bleeding started. After visiting a cemetery (Lag B'Omer is both the anniversary of my father's death and my daughter's birthday), we drove straight to the hospital, and after a week of re-examinations, it was determined that the pregnancy had stopped developing. Luckily I didn't even have to have a scrape because the ultrasound showed an "empty uterus". Indeed the feeling is of a terrible emptiness.
Although my behavior while I was in the hospital indicated improvement, I was just fine, not hysterical - and not scared, and even when they came to measure my blood pressure often, I was pretty calm!
Very strong in my mind (was this time bought well well with me) that everything is for the best, and not me who is planning things. My job is to accept them and exhaust the positive in every situation and hope for the best!
This property probably sits pretty deep with me, and not superficially, because with it I managed to get through a week of hospitalization (which is not exactly my cup of tea !!), but when I got home I ran out of fuel, and sadness and despair found a home for me.
I was so happy with this pregnancy. Every morning I just opened my eyes and remembered I was pregnant I jumped out of bed happily! I always had some giggles in my throat, it made me laugh so much that I was privileged to be pregnant again, and just writing those words or saying them out loud to the doctor etc. it worded me with such joy and simple joy. Even when the nurse at the clinic handed me a "pregnant woman card", I held it in my hand with such fun - I really enjoyed every moment.
So I also said to myself, that I am thankful for every moment of pregnancy regardless of the results - just everyday. "Thank you that I am pregnant," and "The God of souls you have given me is pure," and so on. I changed its meaning, to adapt to my situation - how I enjoyed myself.
So now the feeling that the celebration is over, and going back to the gray reality of waiting and not being a part of this fun - and what do I have that I do not hold my babies, that I ejaculate them in a puddle of blood ... and that my womb is now "empty".
How fast and flexible is our psychology. For more than two years I have been struggling with reality and trying to build myself in a framework of not getting pregnant - and on the day, day in and day out, that I found myself pregnant - as if my whole being was waiting for this moment - without a transition period, without a bridge. is nothing. It was so clear to me, so natural and fun ... as they say: "You get used to good things fast ..."
And the revolution is pretty cruel, and I find myself weak and unwilling to get up and continue where we left things a week ago. Heavy limbs and dreaming.
All my consolation is Jerusalem. God has done me a favor by arranging things so that I was liberated the day before Jerusalem, and I find out of my privacy, and above it I share in the joy of the whole, a joy that is near and simple and sweeping. A kind of realization of what is prayed daily and mine had a special meaning:
"... and let us have mercy on us and give good reward to all who truly trust in your name, and put our part with them and never be ashamed because in you we trusted and for your great mercy we really relied ... and Jerusalem will have mercy again, and dwell in it when you spoke and built it soon in our day." Your servant will soon prepare for it. Blessed are you, who builds Jerusalem ... "