 "Today I Have Hope" Printed with permission from "The Chesed Boomerang" by Jack Doueck www.judaicapress.com A holocaust survivor (Dr. Victor Frankel, in Man’s Search For Meaning) writes: We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.
Printed with permission from "The Chesed Boomerang" by Jack Doueck www.judaicapress.com My name is Rachel and I live in Brooklyn, New York. My parents were born in Aleppo and moved to the United States in 1920. I have light brown hair and blue eyes. I’m in my thirties and recently divorced, but I plan on remarrying soon and building a family. Eight weeks ago I was leaving work and a car came speeding through a red light and hit me. It was what they call a hit and run. I was knocked to the ground. They rushed me to Bellevue only to learn that I was in a coma. Medicaid does not provide a hospital attendant to sit by me. My head injuries were so painful that in the middle of the night I would thrash around from side to side unable to control myself. The nurses decided to tie me up at night with my bedsheets. My arms and legs were tied to the bedposts. With no attendant to help me, I was left alone in the hospital bed lying in my own waste, tied down to the bed, left to die in a coma all the doctors thought I would never awake from. All my hopes, my dreams, my life, were disappearing. I was a vegetable. A family, children of my own, would never be a reality for me. I had no insurance. My mother, who I was taking care of, was now alone. She was without her only child and her only means of support. It seemed, in one short moment, in one fateful accident, life turned into the darkest most horrifying nightmare. Somehow Sephardic Bikur Holim found out about me. They called my mother. Within twelve hours there were Sephardic Bikur Holim volunteers at my bedside. They untied the bedsheets so I could sleep like a human being. They cleaned me so I could live or die with dignity. They held my hand. They whispered in my ear. "We love you." "We’re with you." "There’s so much more to live for." They prayed for me. There I was, four weeks in a coma, abandoned by doctors and professionals, but not by Sephardic Bikur Holim. Within two weeks I snapped out of the coma. Sephardic Bikur Holim arranged for government aid to pay my medical bills. They took me to a rehab center. They provided us with food vouchers and paid our rent. They spent time with my mother and helped her cope with the situation. After another two weeks, when I first was able to recognize my mother, I told her: "Hi mom. I’m back. I’m here again and I love you. Don’t worry, It’ll be O.K.". I really am going to be O.K. I am thankful to God for giving me back my life and to Sephardic Bikur Holim for giving my life meaning. Where would I have been if Sephardic Bikur Holim would not have been there to help me? Today, I have hope. I want to fall in love again and have children. I want to tell my children about my experience and teach them to be caring, loving, sensitive, giving people. I pray my dreams will come true and I’m thankful I now have dreams.
|