Robert, did you have to make me cry...again?

There's something about watching the continuous rise...and fall...and rise... of a chest, whether it's labored breathing or steady breathing. (I've had the need to do some "watching" over the years.) But it IS ALL about breathing...and about life.

Pearl:

Sorry. Didn't mean to.

Made me cry, too.

It's true. We are all carrying someone - or something - for all our lives. Reminders are everywhere. But it'd be worse to let go...

McAryeh:

Letting go would be... inhuman.

Me, too (also crying)... You have a beautiful flair for language, Robert - it's the beauty of how you say it as much as the content that brings the tears to my eyes...every time.

Sarah: Very kind of you. Here, have a kleenex.

Should have read "if we were able to let go"...but yes, it would be inhuman.

I think that it is important to carry some things and some people with us wherever we go. As long as it has a grounding affect upon you and does not prevent you from living.

But it is hard to find that middle ground.

What an awful situation.

Jack:

Finding that middle ground is, well, pretty much what I spend every minute of my life doing.

A family that I love very much, is going through what you must have gone through, with their baby.
I want to be there for them, but have no idea what to do or say, and so I end up saying and doing nothing.
Do you have any insights as to what, as a friend, I could do to be helpful?

Yael:

Don't tell them that it's a test. Don't tell them that the child is in a better place. Don't tell them that time will heal. Don't tell them that some good will come of it. Don't tell them that HaShem has a plan and we can't see it. Don't try and make it better. You can't. No one can, and those who do try are arrogant fools. Just acknowledge that the death of a child is a tragedy beyond language, and beyond imagination.

Robert, the images of what Hurricane Katrina left in her wake are unbearable. The way people are turning on eachother is inhuman.

It seems the minute our children are born, the way we as parents "breath", is connected to everything they do, think and feel. If they hurt, we hurt. If they are happy, we are happy. That connection doesn't end just because your child is no longer with you.

To Yael, if I may add, when people are hurting or in crisis, most "friends" will run the other way, because they do not know what to do or say. Just be there. I guarantee you, that one simple act will touch their hearts in a way that words cannot express.

What a beautiful tribute to the father that his daughter would wrap him so lovingly and take him with her. I was young when my father died. I miss him every day and I wish that my kids could have known him.

Randi: The "friends" who disappeared when Ariel died are no longer counted as, well, anything.

Lisa: Try putting together a scrapbook about your father for your children. It's not the same as knowing, not by a long shot, but in the end memories are all we can call upon. May your father's memory be a blessing.

I am so angry right now about our lack of preparedness for Katrina that I'm almost forgetting to cry when I see these terrible pictures. But maybe this will finally make Americans of all persuasions and economic levels realize a few things:

1) Our government does not and will not save us when the time comes. This is true whether it's a Republican or Democrat in office. My friends who survived 9/11 are the ones who just got up, and got out, period. They didn't wait for help.

2) The American people are great, and everybody knows that except our terrible leaders. Our elected officials are unable to do the right thing ever because they think the people are something other than what they are. Well, the people in New Orleans who didn't get out were just too damn poor or sick or old to do so. And NOW the government sends in the National Guard and the buses to Houston? Geez! Why not wait 'till next week while they're at it? I guarantee the "message" the politicians of all stripes will learn from this is "that there's always going to be some people just too stupid to save themselves"... and that's just baloney!

3) Most of this honest criticism will eventually be misinterpreted as "playing politics." If there ever was a clear reason why you should NEVER, EVER join a political party or identify yourself as a Democrat or a Republican and join someone's ideological team, it's a disaster like this one. Partisan jerks will eventually just blame each other for this and be just as unprepared the next time a killer storm hits.

In Psalms 150, King David said as follows: "Kol hanishmah tihalel Ka..." Literally, Let all souls praise G-d. The Talmud teaches that by rearranging the vowels, the verse can be read, "kol neshimah - al kol neshimah vineshimah tihallel Ka." That we must thank and praise G-d for every single breath we take.

Robert, thanks for painting a picture of this idea
so vividly.

Jake,

I am an independent and not taking sides. I have a question. How do you know why the people didn't leave New Orleans?

I am sure that some were too sick or too poor, but how do you know that the majority fell into that category?

Avi:
Thanks for your comment. I was not consciously referring to this verse, but I'm glad that you found the connection. Kol HaKavod.

Jack, please don't even think of blaming the victims here. You can tell by just looking at these folks that they are very poor. And if you don't believe your eyes, believe the stats. 40% of the population of N.O. is below the poverty line! 40%! Is this the US or Bangladesh?!?! This is a city with a Democrat Mayor, a state with a Democrat Governor, and a nation with a Republican-controlled federal government, so there's plenty of blame to go around. But instead of blaming, we need to set up better evac plans right now, (that's on the dem local officials), and we need to stop abusing the National Guard by sending them to foreign wars, (that's on the GOP federal officials), and we need to stop trying to blame the victims who don't evacuate because no one forced them out. If I were living in an area where I knew my neighbors will steal my stuff if I left, I might need an armed guardsmen to convince me to leave too!

Jake, can I be so bold as to step in here (uninvited, of course)as to ask you to please take your argument with Jack elsewhere -- it seems sort of sacrilege for you to be spouting political grievances on a post that in essence deals with Robert & Karen's loss of their son.

I'm sure that Robert can fight his own battles and tell you the same thing -- but he's too nice a man and probably won't -- but it's just so jarring to read a post such as this one, read some related comments and then come across this in-your-face rant. Personally I don't think it belongs here.

I apologize if I perhaps am stepping on toes here, but I bet other readers of Seraphic Secret might be thinking the same, but not saying anything.

This is not a political battle. I'm sorry if it sounds like one. In fact, I don't even consider it an argument. I don't think Jack and I disagree, at least I didn't intend to do that. I just wanted to expand on Robert's post about these poor people and the strife they face right now. Yes, I am angry at our terrible leaders, who have not planned for this and are allowing these things to happen in 2005. I also wanted to caution every reader of this post to remember this could be you, as Robert eloquently did with his personal story.

I would guess from having visited New Orleans that most of the folks who didn't leave were too poor. I am not sure what I would do if I needed to suddenly leave town for a period of time. My son is down there somewhere in the chaos. He worked at Wal-Mart as there are so few jobs down that way. It took him forever to find that one.
I also think that these are beach folks who have been through lots of hurricanes. After you evacuate so many times when you didn't really need to, I think you decide that you will ride it out. I am simply appalled at the footage down there. There is still news coming in today that there are parishes that have yet to see any troops or helicopters that have folks still on roofs and in attics. I guess it is a lesson to us all. Despite how much emergency management practice we have had, this has and will continue to be a nightmare. All they had to do was drop supplies to those folks at the dome....but I am sorry, I got started on a comment rather than the post.
I think that we are honored to carry those we love with us, or drag them at times. Whether they are here, in harms way, or gone from us, it is the love that we have for them that matters. The love is the one thing that stays and is always there. I did a post on this just a day or so ago. Hugs.

Jake,

You are correct, this is not a political disagreement or a fight. One of the things that I have learned from life is that we need to be careful about assuming things.

And one of the things that I have learned from Robert and Karen is to be careful with words even when they are intended to help.

My issue here is that there are so many assumptions being made and I think that this is a dangerous way to live life.

I know several parents that have lost children and as a father I cannot begin to imagine the heartbreak or sense of loss.

I am hopeful that the lessons I have learned here help to provide comfort, however small.

In the end I think that if we can find a way to help people retain their feeling of being part of a community we have done something very special and this is part of what I take from this blog.

My apologies if this seems to have rambled or offended anyone.

Another beautiful, gut-wrenching post, Robert. Thank you for sharing your gift for writing with us. The window into yours and Karen's pain touches us all, no matter how little or how much we can identify with it.

Esther: Thanks so much for your generous comment.

I have not seen discussion on how you continue to love your Hashem, after what has happened to you. How do you maintain this excitement and care about religious beliefs and practice? Wouldn't it be enough to maintain some contact w/ the religious issues but not on such a daily basis.

From what I have read, the majority of holocaust survivors did not maintain the steadfast approach to religious practice after the war.

This is entirely understandable.

I think that this is the most interesting aspect of your ordeal, and would welcome more comment.

Frank:

You have not see this discussion because there has been none. If I were to lose my faith because my son Ariel ZT"L died, a. it would be a pretty shallow faith--for death touches us all, and b. my son was very religious and infused our house with extraordinary Torah learning and goodness. And to abandon such a tradition would be an affront to his memory and it would leave us with, what? I cannot even contemplate the nothingness that opens up once Torah is abandoned.

In truth, it never even occurred to me to stop being religious. No offence, but it seems a highly narcissistic reaction.

Elie Wiesel once said that there were two natural reactions to the Holocaust: 1. You lose your faith. 2. You gain faith. Both, he said, are equally valid responses.

Meanwhile, I have not gone through the Holocauset. Just an unbearable tragedy that leaves me deeply diminished in most every facet of my life.

Thanks so much for your comment.

Yael, I would add one other piece of advice from my own experience as a bereaved mother. Try to be where your friends are at any particular moment. There may be times when they want to speak about their baby - those times, listen carefully and acknowledge the depth of their loss. Accept that they may say some very desperate and scary things. Don't try to "make it better;" as Robert says, nothing you say will really ever comfort them. There may also be other times when they don't want to concentrate on their loss, and so don't come to them with a long face if they are in the mood to be distracted. Most of all, make sure when you are with them that you are not inadvertently causing THEM to take care of YOU. (This happened to me several times when people started crying hysterically when I told them my daughter had died, and I felt that I had to comfort them for my own daughter's death.)

Frank,

Like Robert, losing my daughter did not make me consider for a minute leaving my religious faith behind.

My faith was never based on the assumption that all will be well in life. I learned very early that that is not the case, but nonetheless chose to lead a religious life. It is my faith that gives me most of the strength I have to go on after indescribable loss (I wrote about this recently in my own blog). Without it, life would seem far too dark and cold to be worth living.

Like Ariel z"l, my daughter never lost her faith despite her deep suffering; she told me toward the end that she had made her peace with God. If she could preserve and value her relationship with her Creator and her religion, how can I fail to do the same?

Sara

As much as we carry our loved ones along with us after they have gone, they carry us with them, and take us to higher places.

Because we believe in hashem and know that they have gone on to a better place, we don't loose our faith, we continue to grow and know that while they may be in a higher world they carry us thru.

Dear Robert and Karen,
I have just discovered your site and the holy memories of your most special Ariel Z'L. May G-d provide you with nechama.

You mention waking up two years later, thinking it is time to check on Ariel's oxygen. I am reminded of my own thinking, though vastly different than yours. I went away from home to Yeshiva at age 14. I called my grandmother every few days. As time went on it grew somewhat less often, but I always made sure to call her on Friday. My grandmother live to the age of 94. I called her every Friday for over 30 years. It is eight years since she passed on, and I still think I have to call Bubby to wish her a "Good Shabbos".

As she live a long and good life, thinking of Bubby is pleasant. May G-d grant you the same pleasant memories.

David