Life Goes One (Article #48) 6/21/2007

Over the last couple of weeks we have had many people ask us, either in person, by phone or via email…..”So – are things returning to normal?”

Normal? I don’t think there is such a thing as normal anymore. No matter what we do from now on, our lives are forever changed and I cannot imagine being able to return to the same “place” we were before Goldie first got ill and certainly before we found out about her tumor.

However, we are certainly trying as hard as we can to regain a sense of routine, where we have a regular pattern of life that we follow. In many ways, leaving the kids in Israel with my parents set the table for this process, since they had only slight modifications to their routine and were (for the most part) able to sleep in their beds in night, eat at their normal table, attend their regular school and continue the routines they had developed over the past several months.

This made the adjustment for them a lot less stressful and difficult. Sure they missed us, but they saw us on the webcam all the time, spoke to us on the phone and were reassured that we were doing everything possible to take care of the medical issues and return home.

My parents had to return to America within the week after our return, so the timing of Goldie’s release worked out very well. We didn’t tell the kids exactly which day we would be back. We were concerned it would upset their lives too much and if there was a problem that the disappointment would be too much for them.

Our arrival was therefore a big event. We arrived in the late morning, so we were able to welcome each kid home as they arrived and spend a couple of minutes with them alone, instead of having them all clamoring for our attention at once.

We unpacked and had some time to have with the kids and tried to settle down and settle in. We hadn’t slept much on the plane (despite taking sleeping pills) and were exhausted. And couldn’t sleep.

It was really bad. I think we slept something like 6 hours in 3 days. We had spent 6 weeks out of the house and were just not comfortable. Plus, after having forced ourselves through the incredible stress and worry of the prior two months, we finally tried to let go of all the tension and tried to relax and all the tension, nerves and worry didn’t want to let go of us.

So we walked around exhausted all the time. We spent a lot of time getting new medical records to doctors and confirming various monitoring plans and protocols. We tried to catch up on the mountain of bills and other obligations that had been ignored during our absence. I went to work for a few hours one week. The next week more like 60%. Now, unless I have to go to a doctor with her, I am mostly able to be in the office or working out of the house as I need.

We began to do regular things.

I went one night last week to watch Chaim’s flag football team in the second round of the playoffs. By his own estimation, his team was 4th best in the entire league and true to expectation they lost to the team they felt was just ahead of them. He had an awesome experience with the flag football and was not disappointed in the least. Having formed the team, gotten them a sponsor and captained it through the season, this was a tremendous growth experience for him in responsibility and follow through and we were very impressed by the manner in which he did it and stuck to it for the entire season.

That night, the Yeshiva had a siyum for the end of the year for Northern Hemisphere students. Although some of them will stay for the summer z’man of learning, most of them will be returning/have returned to their homes for the summer before leaving for university or (in some cases) a second year of study in Yeshiva in Israel.

Saying goodbye to these students was vastly different to my prior experiences with day school and high school graduates. The Yeshiva is much smaller than those schools were and with a more mature student body it was much easier to interact with them and get close to them regardless of the shorter duration (only one or two years) spent with us.

As the Director of Alumni, I will actually get to keep up with them for the rest of their lives. Yet, it is still difficult to see them go and have to totally reset my mental expectations so that the next group can be viewed on their own merits rather than in contrast to this one.

On Wednesday, Goldie came with me to Jerusalem for the day. She went shopping in the morning at the Malcha mall for some presents. One of the things that she loved about it was the ability to once again sit in the food court and have lots of kosher food available that WASN’T ice cream!

After lunch she took a bus to my office and later that afternoon we headed off to the Kotel. That was the real reason for the trip. Goldie mentioned that she “felt like going to the Kotel” and since it is a drive away (not a transcontinental flight) it was easy enough to arrange for her to get there.

It had been a while for us, and it was (as expected) quite emotional for us. We also bumped into a few kids who were making their last visit before returning home (how sad) to the US or other places.

Before leaving the city, we went to see the massive book fair in the old train station just off of Derech Chevron Street in Jerusalem.

Every year, the country of Israel celebrates “Book Week” for a week at the beginning of the summer/end of the spring. Bookstores announce major sales and offer large discounts during that time and many major cities conduct major book fairs for their residents.

Admission is free and most of the bookstores and publishers as well as newspapers and magazines (soliciting new subscribers) offer their books/seforim to the public at hugely discounted prices.

We decided to see what it was all about. While it was certainly interesting and we definitely bought some things (including a new children’s magazine subscription so that they could further expand their vocabularies), it was also a little depressing for us (me) to realize that we/I didn’t understand anything that was there.

As I walked from stall to stall, I had very limited understanding what the books were about, even what types of books they were (fiction, non-fiction, etc.). It is jarring to see that even though we have progressed so far from where we started, that we still have many obstacles to tackle. Hopefully it will get a little easier as time goes by.

Sadly, we have also heard of a few families who will be taking their leave of us in the next few weeks. Families from various parts of the world who had come to Israel as we did, looking forward to new lives, new growth and new experiences. For whatever reasons they couldn’t make it work for them and now they go back to try to regain their former lives.

This is also a fact of life. Not everyone is successful in their adjustments and in adapting. Sometimes there are health issues that need to be addressed. Other families may have children whose educational needs cannot be met here. Still others may not feel comfortable in the society or (for commuting fathers) in the fact that Dad is constantly away from home.

Financial issues loom large here in Israel. Many families feel stress at budget time and making what we consider a decent living is certainly no picnic, especially for those who have high expectations. There are really too many reasons to count, yet the bottom line is that every year there is a percentage of people who, for whatever reasons they have, made the decision to go back.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. The law of averages means that some people don’t make it. Selfishly I can say that I am glad that (at least today) we fit in the other part of the equation and are continuing to adjust and settle in with the hope that we will stop talking about adjusting and fitting in and just talk about living.

As a matter of fact, those people who are going back might even be more courageous than we who stay. After all, there will be those people who will say that they “failed” or “weren’t tough enough to deal with the hardships”. They are going to have to go through the trauma of relocating thousands of miles again, buying a new house (if they sold theirs), adjusting to another new school situation and adjusting to their new environment.

So they are making a very courageous choice in doing what they think is best for themselves and their families and not caring about anything else. We wish them all the best and that they truly find the solution to their problems and that they should have the zchut (merit) of rejoining us as soon as they can (along with all of you).