During the past year, Ima (mother) planned her life after retirement. Ima is a woman who is young in spirit. She worked hard all her life; she would go to work at a quarter to seven in the morning and come home exhausted in the late afternoon hours.
On the first day of her retirement, all of the children and grandchildren came to celebrate with her. We prepared a festive meal and a game based on our memories of Ima’s working days, which were an inseparable part of the beautiful childhood she gave us. It was a beautiful evening, full of family reminiscences. We all wished Ima many good, healthy years and that she should succeed in filling them with all of her wonderful plans, and each of us went on her way.
The next day, Ima had a stroke. Abba found her lying unconscious on the kitchen floor when he came back from prayer services. All of the smiles and happiness of yesterday turned into hot tears. For twenty-four hours that felt like an eternity, Ima fought for her life. When we saw a small smile on the doctor’s face, we heaved a sigh of relief. He reported that Ima had survived the stroke, but that a long and complex period of rehabilitation lay before her. It was a good thing that we didn’t know what the future held, because we might have given up then and there.
I met your first volunteer at Tel Hashomer, when I was looking for a ride to take me home so I could rest a bit. He told me about “Linked to Life,” your myriad of volunteers who are connected online and who respond to requests for rides from hospitals. He gave me the number of headquarters. That was our first contact. I cannot even describe the amount of help we got from you — the information, the encouragement, the costly medical equipment that you lent us for Ima’s rehabilitation, the nourishing meals you brought every single day, the countless taxi rides that you saved us…Please understand that it was not only the money you saved us but the hassle of dealing with rides when we had no emotional energy left. The Ezer Mizion drivers took all the hassle upon themselves and bent over backwards to make things easy for us, physically and emotionally.
Yesterday Ima returned home after many long months. It is self-understood that it was your ambulance that brought her home and that your volunteer sent a cake… In the evening, I sat with Abba. He was tired but happy about Ima’s return. Then he took out a paper where he’d made an accounting, to the best of his ability, of all the money you saved us since Ima’s stroke. We couldn’t believe what a large sum it had come to! Abba wrote a check from Ima’s monthly pension (attached), in tremendous appreciation to the organization that stands behind all the wonderful people that we met! But all the emotional support, all the handling of logistics again and again and again—that can never be paid back. You really strengthened us! Tizku l’mitzvos smeichos (may you merit to continue your mitzvos)!
