Dealing with Challenge

My father did reach out to me a number of times. I, however, could not bring myself to answer his messages. I was afraid that somehow he would rob me of the peace and happiness I had found, and reawaken old and painful memories...

I tapped into a part of myself that’s generally under wraps. Mummified, really. This part of me, in case you’re wondering, is my integrity. My authenticity. Not that I’ve been living a lie, but I haven’t been so honest with the world, not even with myself . . .

I wanted my father to cocoon me, like he did when I was ten years old. Isn’t that what fathers are supposed to do? Shield their little girls and keep them away from fear?

I was thirteen years old when my life with the Tanners began. It was a cold day in January in the year 1985 when I stood clutching my meager belongings on the concrete stoop of the Tanner family’s residence . . .

Things were going well in my life. Oh, there were a few bumps ahead but I had enough experience and, hopefully, faith to know that they could be overcome. I definitely wasn't ready for allegations of verbal abuse, harassment and being the cause of a nervous breakdown...

Keeping the connection is what helped me overcome and recover from a tragic childhood that was filled with misery, pain and constant struggle. Thank you G‑d for helping me overcome this challenge: the dreadful storms of childhood neglect and abandonment...

I spent twenty years of my life wishing he were “normal.” Imagining. Yearning. Wondering about ordinary things like—what would he be like? What would he look like? Would we get along, and what would we have in common?

A close friend of mine has been fighting breast cancer for nearly five years. It seems like her cancer is winning the battle...

I don't want to pass the pain on to my kids. I want them to have love and closeness with me and with others. But I see that as much as my revealed love for them is in the home, my hidden hatred of myself creates a stinging bubble around me that fills the house when I hit bottom...

I know it’s a childish and irrational projection, but that’s how I sum up my heavenly Father – the One up there who has no malice towards me, but is certainly not dependable, who will lure me into a false sense of security, if I let Him, but then will pull the rug out and disappear in the middle of the night...

She says that she is running on empty. She says that there is vast, useless space inside of her. She looks the same on the outside. But things are subtly falling apart. She is bored literally to tears even though her schedule is full. She can’t find meaning despite the rituals and beliefs that frame her days. She doesn’t want to do anything, but she does everything anyway. She can’t figure out where she went wrong when she was playing by all the rules...

My mother’s behavior was not unique. To be a child of a survivor means being hyper-vigilant, as though this act of vigilance could keep the wolves from their prey…

When Jill was born her doctor advised her parents to "let her go." Jill's mother informed the doctor that she would only permit the infant to go one place and that was directly to her heart...

The Germans told us to leave our belongings, assuring us we could retrieve them later. Suddenly, my mother turned to me. 'The cookies! Let me at least go and get the cookies that I baked for you. I'll be right back...'

"This can't be true," I thought, "probably just some prank." But then I saw the wedding crowd slowly filing out of the hall and assembling on the synagogue grounds outside...

For the most part, G‑d is defined by what He is not. What if I just stop being—or identifying with—what I am not?

I would wake each morning filled with dread for the work day ahead of me, plagued by thoughts of what could go wrong. I wanted to make changes in my life and yet could not seem to move ahead...

I’ve been thinking a lot about my anonymous donor lately because I fortunately just celebrated the two-year anniversary of my double-lung transplant. I find that I am now even more grateful to her, and curious about her...

The time of Chanukah is a time to listen for the signals for growth that are taking root beneath the surface of our lives. It is a time to gaze into the climbing flames and to believe that we, too, can climb...

As I climb into bed, I'm wondering how many parts of me are still locked in jail cells, waiting to be freed. And if I could free this one, then with G-d’s help I can launch a search mission for many more...

I have a confession to make. Several years ago, when I went bankrupt, I was too embarrassed to tell you my story...

Behind every Jewish family there is a story, and when I look at my sons, I think of all of them: the six million killed in the Holocaust, as they live in my every word, my every tear and in every moment I tell their story...

Almost as soon as the Nazi occupation began, Irena began making forged documents for Jewish friends. She also offered food and shelter to the increasingly persecuted Jewish population. Then, in 1940, she witnessed the imprisonment of nearly 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto...

My appreciation deepened as I continued to think about benefits of my so called “curses.” All those difficult issues of my youth suddenly seemed more like anchors than problems: Tough like iron yet grounding and stabilizing...

There was no understanding, no allowance for the rest of the relationship, no crossing the bridge to make things better or work things out. It was all or nothing. Life was one big game of walking on eggshells. This was my first lesson in interpersonal relationships...

I don't know how justified I am to talk about life threatening events as I don't remember the accident. I don't remember how it feels to be unsure of whether you will live or die. I don't remember the worry, the fright, the pain; in some ways I don't understand what happened to me...

It has been nearly two years since that fateful night. My family is still suffering the aftermath. I have not been able to work because of the pain. Every day has moments of deep sorrow, but there is also tremendous joy...

How does one reach out to others, to give and to receive, if the very act of waking in the morning causes the pain of realizing one has loved and lost?

After school, I would journey alone from a world defined by the future to a world that had no future. What would I say to Grandma? How could I tell her that I was making plans for later, for what I would be doing once she was no longer here?

I surf between CNN, Fox, and the Jerusalem Post scanning photos of our soldiers: rough beards, weary postures. Some raise their fingers in a "V" while supporting wounded comrades. I squint, searching for Akiva's face among them...

We were close enough to talk. To scream. To hear each other’s cries. Close enough for me to hear him say, “I’m going to die.” And close enough for him to hear me say, “I love you.”

Six months ago I had a late-stage miscarriage, and gave birth to a baby that had passed away in the fifth month. I got out of the hospital, and began to write...

With the exception of semi-frequent snake nightmares, I've lived with this fear fairly uneventfully. That is until last week...

I don't know how I will put aside my pain for the coming Shabbat. The pain is too raw, too overwhelming, yet in a strange way, I need it. I want it. It is my connection with my dead son...

I don't have patience for the rivers of apple juice flowing across the dining room table, and when the lock on the front door finally breaks, locking me out of my apartment at dinnertime with three starving children, I feel like sitting down on the floor and crying with them. I don't, of course, because I'm the mom...

She said, "You are the only person I am telling. When you light candles this Friday night, know that it's all on you." I assumed she was joking, but she repeated this phrase, "Only you."

I know that there is a purpose for every human being. For me, that purpose had to be to leave all that I knew and what was familiar to me, and to start over...

When I first noticed it, I told myself it had probably always been there and I had just never paid attention. But as convincing as I can be, even I didn't buy that...

One year ago, my two sons, one daughter and I stood at his bedside to say goodbye to the man who had been the mainstay of our family...

One month ago, I was literally running out of breath. The breath of life. My lungs were dying. And while my hope and belief in life were alive and well, the idea was to get my body to catch up with my faith. This required some work...

From the outside, people think I am doing great. They compliment how patiently I am waiting for my double lung transplant and how well I am preparing for it. But truth be told, I am not really handling it so well...

I seemed to spend my days ping-ponging between the cold, grueling reality of chemotherapy and an over-emotional outpouring of kindness and compassion...

When I was a child, I always felt different, an oddity among my peers whose parents had no foreign accents or horrific memories of Nazi death camps...

Like all children with such a background, I am very aware of the fact that it is possible that I may have never been born...

I wanted to be free of the thoughts that kept me in bondage, but I didn't know how to let go. I couldn't talk about it. I was so ashamed...it was my fault Mama passed...

My mother-in-law Riva, is a survivor of life, and her dolls symbolize her experiences and struggles along the way. Each doll tells a story...

There was something about the immense love that permeated the home that made it hard to believe that outside those walls, the foundation of everything around us was being ripped to shreds...

Slowly the shelter came to life. My mother got up and prepared breakfast--a few crackers with some jam we still had left, but neither my two sisters nor my mother touched the food…

The large signs in the entryway to our apartment building made it so that even if you didn't want to know, you knew. One of my neighbors had died...

I would be asked what my name is, to which I would respond "Riva." I would then be called a "Judovka," and have rocks thrown at me...

And here I stood sobbing over this plant and this card with my friend who had just come over for coffee. Why? How am I courageous? This woman has lived through so much more upheaval than I could imagine...

What remains from one of the darkest periods of my life is something strange, something I never would have expected: a rare gift that you can only purchase at the cost of thousands and thousands of tears...

At every juncture, on every bridge, at every bend in the road, with every turn of the head, someone lives, someone dies, someone waits, someone cries...

As an eighteen year-old college student, I had only begun to wade in the waters of Jewish observance when I made my first visit to Israel in 1972...

When we contacted my mother's relatives in order to find out where my grandparents and great-grandparents were buried, we ended up banging our heads once again against the old, now-petrified veil of silence...

"Wow! He's a hero!" I guess. "You mean he actually can shoot a gun?" I'd hope so! "Did he kill anyone?" I'm not about to ask but I suppose he did. "Is he a general?" No, he's a corporal. "Does he wear a dog tag? What are they for anyhow?" Um...

I can recall the day Tova died as if it were yesterday. I was eleven years old, and I had never experienced a loss like that. I was in shock...

This young woman, with her dark, black shiny hair, had a spirit and effervescence I could only admire. I thought to myself: she has no idea of the pain I am living with, the weight of what I carry...

I am one of the lucky ones. I may need a lung transplant and am entering a new decade, but I have friends in the here and in the now...

Just a month after my first seizure and diagnosis of brain cancer, I had spent last night completely alone in the emergency room with a second seizure. Even food and water had been prohibited...

Alas for my beautiful Gush Katif that I knew and loved. At this hour I should be standing in my garden; my ankles deep in the lush dark-green grass...

When my sister died, my inspiration did, too. I wondered: Would I ever laugh again? Why did my life go on when hers had been cut short?

My number on the transplant list has jumped from seventh to fourth! The phone can ring at any time. The "call" can be in an hour, a day, a week or a month. I can't sleep. And I am not afraid...

I have lost my brother, my only sibling. I miss him terribly and still love him dearly. Just once I wish he would call and ask if his mother is alive, if his sister is okay...

Today I know that I am exactly where I need to be. I also know that hidden in my current predicament are endless hidden kindnesses, and like a kid on a treasure hunt, I am hunting them out...

iFve weeks later—weeks of slow progress—my drill sergeant, eh hem, my speech therapist upped the ante and put me on a solid month of vocal rest, in an effort to reverse the damage I have inflicted on my pipes...