Death

I apologize to you in advance. I know that someone wrote about it recently and I held back for a while, but I felt that it is a fine time now to write about it.

Last week, I get a call on my voicemail. “Hi Too Hock, it’s me, calling to say, give me a call when you get a chance”. And sure do I call back. Haven’t spoken to her in a long time and I was happy to hear her from her. So I call her back expecting it to be light conversation. “Hi, it’s Too Hock. I got your message, how are you?” “I’m fine B”H, and you?” the usual for a minute or two, and then “oh, you remember when I asked you to say Tehillim for my mom?” “Uh, yeah” “well, she was niftira this past Shabbos.” SHOCK! Total and utter shock. Nothing could be said at that minute. I mean I needed time to process this information. I mean this girl is around my age, and her mother was very young! YOUNG! So I just listen to her and ask the right questions.

It seems that her mother was sick and was in the hospital for a few months. And when my friend spoke to the Dr and the nurse and whoever works with the patients, they told her that she is a strong woman. That though what she is sick with (kidney failure) is fatal, she has a strong heart that will keep her alive. This was on Thursday. Shabbos they get a call. It is all over. What happened to the strong heart? What happened to what they just said a day ago? Why did this happen now? Why? Why? Why?

I did not know what to say to her, but I somehow managed to say the right words to her. And expressed my sympathies to her. I felt horrible that I was unaware of this at the time, and therefore didn’t do a lot of things that I should have done. Called more often. Really say Tehillim, had I known it was fatal. Visit her mother in the hospital, even if she did not know me so well. And call and offer support to my friend. To lose a parent at any age is hard. And though this girl is married with kids, it is hard for her. Her mother a’h was a young woman. But B’H she was able to see her daughter married and know the grandchildren, and have names for her parents. That was what she wanted. What do you say? B”H my mom is healthy and around. No matter how old you are, you need your mother. So, I told her the usual. She is not suffering anymore. We are really selfish.

SELFISH? Yes, you read correctly. We are selfish when it comes to death. We are sad when someone dies and wonder why it happened to US! In this case, the mother is NOT suffering anymore and in the Olam HaEmes. Why should she still be suffering in this world when she is going to a better place? Just because we need her and because we want her too…that makes us selfish. When someone close to us dies, we are sad and we want him or her to still be here. We don’t really look at where they are going and what is happening.

This is the will of Hashem. He pulls all the strings here. The whole purpose of this world is to prepare us of the next. We need to take advantage of the fact that we are still here and able to mitzvos and score points for the future generations and ourselves. It is also Chodesh ELUL. Rosh Hashana is so close! Hashem will soon be decreeing the New Year for us, and now is the time we have to add our two cents in and ask for things. Hashem is always listening. But we need to remember that the Master Himself plans the master plan and we mortals do not understand all that is happening. We do not understand why things are done and can only try to make sense of it. At times, it can take years and years to understand on our level why something happened. Though at the time it happened, we are sad and clueless as to the why! Years later, when we grow up and live life, we get to see a glimpse of Hashem’s reasoning.

You see we don’t always have to see they Why’s in life. But it is good to occasionally see them so to restore our emunah. It can get very hard and frustrating to blindly accept things when they are meant to hurt us. So when us humans get to understand something, we feel better. It helps us.

Tomorrow is also the anniversary of September 11, 2001. The date we will all remember 9-11-01. Although some think they might not have been affected by it, they are wrong. EVERYONE was affected and still being affected by it in some way (a discussion that doesn’t fit in with this one). Do we yet understand the Why’s in this occurrence? Do we understand how it could have happened? And let us not forget the most recent bombing where a father and daughter who was supposed to get married the next night were killed instantly? A father talking to his daughter the night before her chasunah! Giving her last minute advice and fatherly love, blown up because this is what Hahsem wants!

ELUL is banging at our door. Can you hear the knocking?! It is getting louder and louder but yet, at times, it seems that we are all sleeping. How louder does Hashem need to knock? I think it is all time for us to do teshuva, tefillah and tzedakah!

K’siva V’chasima Tova. (I am early, but it fits in)
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