Stuff My father Won’t  Tell Me, Revision of Part 11

Struggling To Do The Right Thing

 It wasn’t so much my father’s problem as it was mine.

The commandment to honor one’s parents had always been for me simply … the right thing to do. Jewish tradition characterizes it, however, as the most challenging of the Taryag Mitzvos, the 613 commandments of the Torah Anyone who has ever cared for a terminally ill parent  appreciates the difficulty of performing this mitzvah well. With the approaching Aseret Y’mai Teshuva, the High Holy Days, I found myself struggling with how best to honor my father who had been battling colon cancer for nearly two years. Hospitalized twice since July of 2008, we moved him to a skilled nursing facility. He lived there for fifteen days. He died on Shabbos, the Jewish Sabbath. I was there at his bedside.

My father's condition made it impossible for him to attend high holy days services this year as he had in years past. I was unsure whether to go to shul on Erev Rosh Ha Shana, the eve of the New Year, or be at his bedside. I wanted to do the right thing, to decide upon the right path  and soon.

“Ron, I’ll be staying with Dad on Rosh Ha Shana,” I told my older brother who had already postponed his return flight to St. Louis several times. However, after two weeks with Dad, he had to return home.  “I just can’t go to services in good conscience,” I added. Ron’s face brightened as if to say ‘You’ve made the right decision little brother’. Ron would have to rely upon me.

“Well,” he observed pithily, “if you can’t take care of your father at a time like this, your religion isn’t worth much, is it?”

“I couldn’t agree more Ron,” I replied, smiling at my brother’s roughly hewn pshat, the literal meaning of a Torah verse, of the Fifth Commandment. I had never seen my older brother weep. I guess there is a first time for everything. I turned aside. “Hey,” he said, gently draping his forearm on the back of my neck and shoulders. “Thank you."

If my father could not come to Rosh Ha Shana. I'd bring Rosh Ha Shana to him. Hoping to elevate my family’s mitzvah of bikkur cholim, visiting the sick to a Kiddush Ha Shem, an act sanctifying the name of God, I brought a holiday meal to the hospital for my family. Perhaps the festive food would strengthen our emunah, belief, that The Aibishter might inscribe and seal him in the Book of Life. My daughter Kimberly cried.

The eve of Yom Ha Din (Day of Judgement, Yom Kippur) approached. Who would live?Who would die? Who would be sealed in the Sefer Ha Chaim, the Book of Life? I found myself wrestling with a more intense moral dilemma than the one I had faced several days earlier. The awesome finality of Yom Kippur filled me with greater uncertainty and dread. My father continued to decline. How could I live with myself tomorrow if I were not at my father’s bedside today? Did I have to stand before the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark, to beg for my father’s life? I needed guidance.

“Rabbi Louis, I’m sorry to call at such a late hour. Do you have a couple minutes? I have a few concerns.” It was about 10:00 P.M. “Sure, come on over,” he said. “Is your office okay?” I asked. “Let’s talk in the Beis Medrash, (room of Torah learning)” he suggested. “I took care of all the plans today," I informed him. We had spoken earlier in the day about final arrangements for my dad. “Any problems with that?” he asked. “No. Not really, but I do have a personal question or two. Do you mind?” Not at all,” he assured me. “When your father was dying in the hospital, were you there with him all the time?” “Almost twenty-four seven,” Rabbi responded. “I sat there reciting Tehilim, psalms, and spent as much time with him as I could,” he added. We chatted for an hour, but  I never asked him where he would have chosen to be had his father been dying on the eve of Yom Kippur. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. 

Time was running out, just hours before Erev Yom Kippur. I hadn't yet made a decision. My father was asleep. I called a friend, a halachic Jew, a Jew who abides by Jewish law, who hosts an on-line yeshiva where I have read some of my poetry and prose. "Hello Ephraim? This is Alan. Is it a good time to talk?” “Yes, it is, but I need several minutes to finish a previous call. Can you call back in about twenty minutes?" “Sure. No problem.” I waited a half hour just to be sure. "Ehraim?" "Alan, I apologize. I was speaking with my mother." “Is she okay?” “Thank God, but she’s eighty-six and has terminal stage four cancer. I’ll be staying with her at home for yontif, the holiday.” I was thunderstruck! Ephraim’s timely story of hashgacha pratis , the belief that things happen by God's design, resolved my dilemma.

"Hello, Alan," Rabbi Louis called me motzai yontif, after the holiday. "We missed you today." “Hello, Rabbi. Thank you. You’re never going to believe this.”I relayed Ephraim’s story. “Baruch Ha Shem, Thank God!” Rabbi responded enthusiastically. It was yet one more confirmation of his oft-repeated adage that “Got firt da velt, God runs the world.” “The Aibishter sends messengers to help us make the right decision,” Rabbi counseled.

The right decision? One that in the end enabled me and my dad to reach closer to The One Above together than either of us could have done separately. I was called to his bedside late Shabbos morning. I was certain my father’s neshuma, soul, was readying itself to depart. A sound came from his throat as he drew his last breaths.  A final calm blanketed him. He was warm and at ease

A part of my father had gone missing eight years before when his twenty-two year old grandson, my son Ben departed this world. It's hard to pin down, but I suspect it left at the same time as Ben's neshuma. Like Jacob who had clung to Esau's heel, it attached itself to Ben's ha akev shel ha nefesh, the heel of his soul, taking a litle bit of my father with him.

Now on this Shabbos Kodesh, the Holy Sabbath, my father would at long last be whole again.

Alan D. Busch

10/23/08