Rehovot, Israel
2 February, 1997

To all of our dear friends,

-

My lovely wife, Rachel, passed away the night of Monday, 20 January, 1997 (13 Shvat, 5757) at 10:45 p.m. Up until her last day, Rachel would walk in town, sit in her cafe and write, and live life to the fullest. Her last concious act was to walk toward one of her favorite cafes. She never came home.

We had just gotten a chest x-ray in preparation for a lung exam later that afternoon and had left the building. She turned away, as if she were leaving. I said to her "You’re not leaving without saying good-bye?". She gave me one of her beautiful smiles, laughed, and said "Of course not. I was just getting out of someone’s way." We kissed, said good-bye and we parted ways after agreeing to meet at home for lunch at 12:45. After a few paces, I turned to watch her go. She had been very unsteady on her feet lately, and I wanted to make sure that she was ok. She insisted on going by herself since her independence was so important to her.

I later found out that on the way to her cafe, no more than 10 minutes after we parted, she began to feel pain and leaned for support against a parked car. A woman found her in distress and took her to an ambulance station. She was immediately taken to the local hospital, still concious. While doing intake, she lost conciousness and stopped breathing. She was rushed to resuscitation.

In the meantime, I had returned home from some errands and listened to the messages on our answering machine. I did not normally do this. The messages were routine and I took notes so that Rachel would be able to answer the calls. She was our "telephone person". Then, there was a message from the ambulance service saying that my wife had been taken to the emergency room at the hospital. I immediately drove the 10 minutes to the hospital and looked for Rachel. I was so sure that I would find her behind one of the curtains, propped up in bed, smiling at me and saying "I feel fine, let’s get out of here". But, instead, a nurse directed me to a room at the end of a corridor labelled "resuscitation room" (loose translation from the Hebrew).

I got a peek inside the slightly ajar sliding door and saw my beautiful wife, unconcious, lying naked from the waist up on a table, with staff of doctors and nurses around her. They were pumping her chest by hand. When they saw me, they asked me to wait outside. I spent the next few minutes of talking, pleading, and bargaining with God, until a doctor came out and told me that Rachel was in critical condition. They believed that she was suffering from a massive pulmonary embolism, a blood clot which had probably formed in her leg, and then broken loose and lodged in her lung. It was preventing the flow of oxygenated blood back to the heart, choking her body. Her pulse was unsteady, her blood pressure was low and unstable, and she was on a respirator. The doctor asked me if I wanted them to continue with their efforts. I answered that she had been without pulse, blood pressure, and breathing before, when she went into anaphylactic shock during a CT. He said that what she was going through now was a completely different ball game, and did not hold out much hope for recovery. I told him to continue. I told him that Rachel was a fighter, that she would come around. He went back and they continued their work. I went to phone Rachel’s parents in Baltimore and let them know what was happening. Then I returned and not knowing what to do, began reciting a Hebrew prayer which Rachel had received from her brother the kabbalist. It is composed of three passages, the first from the book of Proverbs and the second two from the book of Isiah. "Be not afraid of sudden terror, Neither of the destruction of the wicked, when it cometh (Proverbs Ch. 3, v. 25). Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nought; Speak the word, and it shall not stand; For God is with us (Isiah Ch. 8, v. 10). Even to old age I am the same, and even to hoar hairs will I carry you; I have made, and I will bear; Yea, I will carry, and will deliver (Isiah Ch. 46, v. 4)." The Hebrew has a poetic beauty which does not translate well. This prayer had been our guiding light throughout the 17 months of Rachel’s illness. It held a promise for her recovery.

I said this prayer once, repeated it again, and again, and again. I repeated this prayer for two hours, wringing my hands, crying, pleading with God to help my beloved, reminding him of the promise implicit in her prayer. I kept receiving interim reports from the doctors. The words "critical" and "desparate" kept being repeated. She was being kept alive only by the drugs they were giving her. I never lost my faith that Rachel would come out of this latest in a long, long series of trials.

After about two hours, I asked if I could come in to be with her. By then, her pulse was erratic, but her heart was beating and they were no longer performing chest massage. I went in, kissed and hugged her, caressed her beautiful head, and told her over and over how much I loved her. I told her that all she had to do was maintain her heartbeat, her blood pressure, her breathing, and dissolve that clot. It sounded so simple. After a few minutes of my talking to her,the doctor remarked with some surprise that her pulse had stabilized. I knew that she had heard me and that this was the beginning of our miracle. Her pulse stayed stable for another hour and she was moved to a monitor room in one of the wards.

I had more constant access to Rachel in this room. She was hooked up to monitors, six infusions, and had tubes for breathing and urine. I couldn’t kiss her face because the monitors were in the way, but I could reach over to caress her face and tell her all day how much I loved her. I reminded her how all she needed to do was breathe, beat her heart, maintain her blood pressure, and dissolve that clot. The doctors told me that Rachel had at least minimal neurological function, since she had some breathing reflex. But they could not promise anything more than that.

Throughout that afternoon I would come into the room, hold her hand, repeat over and over that I loved her, and caress that face which I have loved for so many years. Throughout that afternoon, her blood pressure was dropping and responding less and less to the drugs which had maintained it. I had called her parents and asked them to fly over immediately, hoping that in the end we would have a celebration of her recovery and not a funeral. They notified her brother in Jerusalem, and he arrived shortly after Rachel was moved to the ward. I had also called Rachel’s best friend, and she came to be with me. Her husband came toward evening. I am so thankful that they were with me through this terrible day.

Toward evening, I saw that Rachel’s pulse was slowly dropping. It had gone from 130/min down to 116/min. I saw this as a positive sign that her heart was pumping more blood with each beat, a sign that perhaps the clot was opening.

Rachel had received streptokinase to dissolve the clot in her lung, and then heparin. She began hemmorhaging in her stomach, and a tube was inserted via her nose to drain the blood.

At about 10 p.m., her blood pressure was so weak that the nurse could not measure it. Rachel no longer responded to the drugs to raise her blood pressure. I noticed that her pulse was now rapidly dropping. From 116 to 112 to 104, 98, 90, 82, 74, 66, down to 58 within a few minutes. I ran to get the nurse. She came, and then I noticed that the respirator had stopped working. Rachel took a few labored breaths on her own and then stopped. The nurse got the doctor and they began respirating her manually until a new respirator arrived. I was asked to wait outside. The new respirator arrived, and I expected the door to open up and I would again enter and tell her how much I loved her. Instead, the doctor came out at about 10:45 pm and told me "I’m sorry. Your wife died a minute ago."

I was stunned. I began sobbing, calling her name. I called her Bubbie. I began to shiver and my friends brought me blankets to keep me warm. I knew it was true, but could not believe it. I was so thankful to have my friends with me. After about 30 minutes of crying, I asked if I could go in to see her. They agreed and after a few minutes, had gotten all the tubes and infusions out of her. I went in and saw the lifeless body of the woman to whom I was married nearly 20 years, the mother of our four children, a woman who until that morning was so full of life and love. A woman who had undying devotion to her children and me. She was so beautiful to me at that moment. I hugged her, kissed her forehead, and told her over and over how much I loved her. I asked her to guide us, to help me and the children through the difficult months and years ahead. I asked her to take my prayer list up to heaven, and pray for those people who have been in my prayers three times a day. Many of those people are on these lists. The name which had been at the top of my prayer list, my beautiful Rachel, was no longer listed. We had prayed and our prayers were heard. But God, in His infinite wisdom, does not always answer them the way we would like.

I wanted to leave the hospital before they took Rachel from her room to the morgue. I thanked the doctor for all of her efforts. I believe that Rachel’s fate was sealed that morning. Others will say that her fate was sealed the day she was diagnosed, but I don’t think so. She fought long and hard and extended her life through her courage and optimism. My friends drove me home in my car. I was in no condition to drive. Rachel’s brother was with my kids. I woke him and told him the horrible news. I then called my parents, my sister, and Rachel’s two brothers in the U.S.. I decided to let the kids sleep and tell them in the morning.

I awoke the following morning and sat the kids on the sofa. I sat on the coffee table facing them and told them the bitter news. We all began sobbing and wailing. I made funeral arrangements that morning. We arranged for a funeral that night since Jewish law requires that the funeral be performed as soon as reasonably possible. Her parents were scheduled to arrive that afternoon. We got through that day somehow. I cried most of the day. The kids had friends over to comfort them, each according to their age. My oldest, Benny, is 16. He sat on the floor of his bedroom surrounded by about 10 of his friends, just quietly sitting and talking. Noam, 13, and Gadi, 10, spent most of the day with their friends at the computer to get their minds off of things. Our daughter Hadas, 7, spent most of the day with me, hugging me when I would cry. Rachel’s parents arrived in the late afternoon, and we had only to wait for the funeral.

The funeral was scheduled for 7 pm. We got there at about 6:45. By 7 there were hundreds of people in the parking lot. Friends estimate somewhere between 500-1000. In Israel, coffins are not used. Instead, the body is wrapped in a simple shroud. I had to identify the body, and Rachel’s father chose to come along to see his daughter one last time. We were taken to a locked room at the cemetary. When the door was unlocked and opened up, we were led into a small room about 8 ft. by 8 ft. The walls were concrete painted yellow and the room was lit by a single bare bulb above. In the middle of the room was Rachel’s body, wrapped in a shroud, lying on a guerney, and covered with a beautiful black velvet cloth. The rabbi removed the velvet cloth and undid the wrappings so that we could identify her. Then he replaced the wrappings and the velvet cloth and suggested that the children might wish to come to part from their mother privately. I thought that this was a beautiful suggestion. But, I suspected that they would be too afraid. Each of them insisted on coming. Even Hadas, only 7 years old. Rachel’s parents and younger brother were with us. Her other two brothers had not yet arrived from the states. We were led into the room. The outline of Rachel’s body was clearly visible under the velvet covering. Little Hadas asked "Is that Mommy?" and I answered "This is Mommy’s body. Mommy’s soul is in heaven and in our hearts." She began to wail and we all joined her. It was a moment both horrible and beautiful at once. We were all so sad that Mommy had died. We were so overcome with love for our mother, wife, daughter, and sister.

We were then led to the hall where the actual funeral ceremony is performed. Rachel had already been brought and the guerney was positioned in the middle of the large hall. The hall has no seats. There were several hundred people standing and many more spilling out of the two or three large exits. The first thing we did was to recite the prayer said whenever a loved one dies: Blessed are thou, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who is a just judge. We acknowledge that God’s will is beyond our understanding. Next, the rabbi took a sharp knife and made a cut in the collars of our shirts as a sign of mourning. We wore these shirts through the week of mourning which followed.

Rachel’s father then said a few words. He told the story of a rabbi who would dance at funerals and with a mixture of laughter and crying, would chant "Man comes from dust, and ends in dust." When he was asked about this odd song, he replied that had man come from gold and ended in dust, this would indeed be a tragedy. But since man comes from dust and ends in dust, then anything which he does in his lifetime it truly an achievement to be happy about. Our lives are a temporary elevation from the dust from which we have come and to which we are destined to return.

I followed with my eulogy for my beloved. I stood behind the guerney, at Rachel’s head and spoke the following words. I called her Bubbie; she called me Bubby. Same pronunciation, different spelling. Anyone who knows the movie "Adam’s Rib" with Hepburn and Tracy will understand:

"I’d like to read to you a few paragraphs, written by Rachel only last week to our Internet support groups. I had previously posted an update of her condition and we received many responses from our "net friends".

She was such a gifted writer. These are Rachel’s words.

"The flood of good wishes has been so heart-warming. I just read through Lenny's last update, and I must say that the picture it paints sounds pretty awful. The fact is, thank God, that throughout most of my ordeal I have felt good, managed to get to the pool and swim my laps, sit in my coffee shop and do my writing, and wander around town spending money.

I don't know whether Lenny has mentioned the important role that God has played in my cancer. It's a very long story, but there's one incident that I wanted to share with everyone. On the day I had the CT and then went into shock, I had been very weepy while sitting in the waiting room. Nothing specific, but feeling very emotional. The CAT scan is such a black and white test - I can swim and walk and dance, but the scan reflects what's really happening inside. As I walked into the room, I turned to Lenny, crying, to tell him that I knew I wasn't going in alone. I knew, with absolute certainty, that God was going in with me. I never had this feeling before any other medical procedure. I've always had the vision that all my little crises are leading down a path that ends with an abyss. I hoped I wouldn't have to walk all the way to the edge, and that I'd be able to scuttle back in the middle. Each successive crisis showed that this was not the plan. But I always believed that if I came to the edge, and either jumped or got pushed off, that God would be there with a big net to catch me. And He was there, because we had "walked" in together.

Before my cancer God played a very small part in my life. I feel like it's so typical - people remember God only when they get sick or face a crisis. But this is a very natural response. Imagine a child being carried around by his mother. She's holding him facing outward, and he is so interested in everything around him that he's barely conscious that he's being held at all. Suddenly the path dips and the mother slides and loses her balance. The child's stability shaken, what's his natural reaction? He turns around and clings on tighter.

You know those inflatable figures that are like punching bags? They help kids get out their aggression. You punch it down, and then it comes up again. This is kind of how I've felt the last few months. I get knocked down, and then pop back up again to enjoy the time before the next blow hits."

Rachel had the gift of being able to enjoy life in the face of this most dreaded disease. She loved her swims and her morning walks in town. She derived such pleasure from sitting in her cafe every day and writing her morning pages. She would come home and say "I had a GREAT morning pages!", and she would be radiant with joy. I used to wish that she would not go out alone, but I was so happy that she still had the gumption to look her situation in the face and say "I’m in control here!"

The path to spirituality which she followed in her last months has affected us all. She made tefillah (prayer) and learning (scripture) a part of her daily routine. Just last week, she and I began learning a book on Be’ur Tefillah (commentaries on prayer). I miss my learning partner so.

Bubbie, you always imagined that you would have to reach the abyss before God would bring you back. This time, you reached the abyss and jumped. And God caught you. But this time, He did not bring you back. Instead, you flew. Your presence was more acutely needed elsewhere. Perhaps the mission which you had to perform was in heaven, and not on earth as we naturally assumed.

Bubbie, you once told me that if the worst happened, that I should go on with my life and be happy. I told you ok, but on one condition. That you would be my inner voice. Please help us from above with guidance. Help us find the right path to recovery from this horrible loss.

In closing, I would like to quote from Parshat Vayetzeh (Genesis 29/17)

Rachel was of beautiful form and fair to look upon.

Bubbie, you were truly beautiful in every way. You loved your family intensely. You formed deep friendships. You deeply appreciated the many acts of chesed (kindness) from which we have benefited over the last 17 months of your illness. You had such joie de vivre. You were the most beautiful person I have ever had the privilege of knowing. We all miss you so.

May your memory always be a blessing for us."

After my eulogy, we walked to the gravesite. There was a nearly full moon to light the path and the representatives of the burial society carried some portable lights. Rachel was on a stretcher which was carried by friends who kept alternating. I followed right behind with Hadas, our 7 year old daughter who insisted on accompanying me to see Rachel buried. My three boys were also right beside me. The ceremony at the gravesite was quick. The hole had been prepared and the bottom was lined on the outside with thin cinderblocks. The velvet was removed from atop Rachel and her shroud covered body was lowered into the hole. Blocks were placed on those already lining the body so that dirt would not be directly placed on the body. According to Jewish tradition, the body rests directly on the ground, but is protected from above from direct contact.

Following the burial, a friend from our synagogue stepped forward and said that he had been approached by many members and been asked to say something on behalf of our community. He spoke of Rachel’s bravery in the face of her cancer. As an example, he related an incident which happened the previous Friday, three days before her death. Rachel had been walking in town after sitting in her cafe. Rehovot is a small town and we live about a 15 minute walk from the main street. He offered her a ride, but she said that as long as her legs will carry her, she would rather walk. He talked about the strength and inspiration everyone in our synagogue would get from seeing this small woman come to services every Saturday. Her dogged determination to carry on as much as possible with life as usual had an entire community in awe.

We left the cemetary, and came home for the seven traditional days of mourning. During this time, all of our attention is focused on the loved one who has left us. The house was mobbed for seven days with people who knew, loved, and admired Rachel. It was a beautiful tribute to a woman who rarely thought about how heroic and brave she actually was.

In closing, I would like to relate an example of how people were affected by her. On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, a great deal of the service is said standing up. Rachel had had a very difficult week. I had to bring her to the synagogue by wheelchair (the only time she would let me--she walked at all other times). Yet, during the service, she insisted on standing. One friend came over to me afterwards and said "I was about to sit down because I was tired. But then I saw Rachel standing. I had no problem sitting before God. But I could not sit down while Rachel was standing."

My dear friends, we are still picking up the pieces of our lives. My kids are dealing with the loss of their mother, each in their own way. I still cry every day. I talk to Rachel often, usually out loud. The little ones, Gadi (10) and Hadas (7) have a very difficult time and cry quite a bit. Gadi is very sensitive and was very close to Rachel. Hadas just can’t understand why her friends have mommies, and God had to take away her Mommy. I just tell them that we can’t understand God’s ways. I validate their anguish. I cry with them often. I believe that in time, with God’s help, we will be happy again. But I know that we will never be the same.

-