Message from Bracha | Please pray
Today is the ‘shloshim”, 30 days after the passing of my 24 year old son. Please daven, pray.
לעילוי נשמת לוי יצחק הכהן בן ברכה
Levi Yitschok hakohen ben Bracha
Yesterday I went to the swimming pool but I couldn’t swim…
that’s fine.
Yesterday I was able to shop…
that’s OK.
But I wasn’t able to enter certain stores…
that’s fine.
And I had to push myself to put one foot in front of the other…
that’s OK.
Yesterday I spent most of my day talking to friends and therapists for support…
that’s fine.
I’m writing this long letter…
that’s OK.
My house is a big mess because I can hardly do anything…
that’s fine.
On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kipur I just go through the motions because what I’m going through now is more than all the RH’s and YK’s of my whole life put together…
and that’s OK.
Sometimes I cry when I see his picture but sometimes I don’t…
that’s fine.
Any very tall guy with a black beard that passes by, I check to see if it is my Levi…
that’s OK.
I’m crying now…
that’s fine.
I missed the shloshim event on zoom in NY, because I live in the Netherlands and it was for me the middle of the night and I had no strength…
that’s OK.
I feel terribly guilty…
that’s not OK and I’m working on it with friends, mashpiim and therapists…and that’s fine.
Sometimes I sound totally normal…
that’s OK.
Sometimes my sense of humor pops up with a real good joke…
that’s fine.
I’m trying to use the tragedy to recreate myself. I must find new resources and reinvent myself…
that’s OK.
Will I be able to be happy on simchas Torah or will I cry or both…
all are fine.
My love and appreciation for my family members and others is more revealed then ever…
that’s OK.
I’m writing these words because I think you can get inspired and because it’s always therapeutic to write one’s thoughts down…
and that’s fine.
The Kotsker Rebbe said that when we say ashamnu, the confession prayer it’s in plural form because H. is guilty with us for causing all the pain and the circumstances that brought good people like us to sin…
and that’s not OK, but this is what it is…. and that’s OK.
I love you all and Hashem loves you even more because He is with us in our Tsaar, suffering and of course this is fine.
May we all be sealed for a fantastic year with open miracles, the coming of Mashiach and the resurrection of our loved ones!
Bracha Heintz from Utrecht in the Netherlands