Lately I've been searching for different ways to connect with others going thru what I am going thru each day. I am looking for a bigger community and I think I am on the right path so far. I've spent hours at the library and Barnes and Nobles looking thru all kinds of books. I have reached out to a Jewish organization called "Chai Life," we were hooked up with them thru our OT in LA and when we came home to NYC our case was transferred to their NY office. When we came back, I wasn't ready for what they had to offer and wasn't all that interested in knowing other families like mine. I guess there was part of me in denial that this was really the way this was going. Chai Life helps give a community and services to families with children with special needs -- I am still awaiting a call from my caseworker there...hmmm.
Anyway, I recently took a book called "Special Kids Need Special Parents" by Judith Loseff Lavin, out of the library. It's good..and lots of references in there have led me to other books, such as "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Rabbi Harold Kushner. Lavin refers to to Kushners book in the grief section saying "Rabbi Kushner believes that the bad things that happen in the world are not God's will. Bad things happen because nature is amoral and blind or because free choice allows some people to choose evil. When misfortune strikes, how you choose to deal with that misfortune is more important than analyzing why it happened." Kushner says "God's role is not making sure we get what we deserve, but giving us the grace, strength and resiliency to survive when things happen to us that we don't deserve, to me the proof of God is that ordinary people come up with extraordinary spiritual resources in the face of tragedy." I have read this passage over many times and just love it. It seems so true to me and so uplifting.
Like the poem "Welcome to Holland" by Emily Perl Kingsley (go to Nov '07 entry) says "...you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met."
3 years ago
1 comments:
Just read your latest entry, and I think you're the one who's uplifting. Your an inspiration to those of us that may have to look deeper and harder to find the strength to fight another day. It takes strength to remind yourself, while your at the ICU or the emergency room again, of how truly fortunate we really are in the grand scope. There are no guarantees in life (that's for sure), but you do the best you can, right? You get up everyday, and you hope it'll be better than yesterday. Well, it's easier when you have a good team. I think you're a beautiful person and Amelia is a lucky girl and me, well ....I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have you both in my life.
With love from LA
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