Tzippy’s calendar was streaked with red. On October 5th she discovered a lump. It’s name? Cancer. On October 7th , war broke out and her husband, Benny, was drafted. Alone, terrified for her husband, terrified for herself, she underwent treatment. Surgery, chemotherapy, biological and hormonal treatments, radiation.
Tzippy, 43 and mother of six children, was not able to take comfort in the ‘happy ending’ attitude of the young. As a girl, she had lived through the intifada and every one of her friends had lost a loved one. Shortly after her marriage, her childhood home burnt to the ground and her father was diagnosed with cancer. He recovered but the emotional toll on the family was grueling.
The marriage of her younger sister was a welcome glow of joy which did much to wipe away the family’s tears. Until the unbelievable happened. Less than three months later, she started having convulsions. Until then, she had been perfectly healthy, and suddenly, for two and a half weeks, she didn’t stop convulsing. Expert doctors from around the world claimed that this was just the twelfth documented case of auto-immune convulsions. Two and a half weeks of terror. And then it was all over. The new kallah (bride ) passed away.
The years passed, and in 2019, Tzippy again confronted loss, this time of a friend – a soul sister – who was killed in a fatal accident, together with her baby.
And then came her own diagnosis, coupled with the war and all they both entailed.
It was on the fourth night of Chanukah, when it looked like the family was starting to get back to itself
“Suddenly, at 11:23 p.m., Benny walked into the house, which I knew for sure wasn’t supposed to happen. He said to me, “Get dressed,”
I understood that my brother had fallen in the war.”
“One of my close friends had cut off ties with me since the shivah (mourmning period), and I later grasped that this is a common phenomenon – that people don’t know what to do and how to act with friends who lost a loved one. I felt that HaKodesh Boruch Hu (G-d)) had given me a mission. For this reason, I talked about this topic all the time with my students: How do you act with a person who lost someone close to him?
For years, our family was used to being on the giving. In the last decade, Benny volunteered twice a year for the jeep trips that Ezer Mizion organizes for families of cancer patients.
This year, when the organizer asked if he can come, he was shocked to hear that this time, Benny was coming from the other side of the fence.”
“In the summer, we went on Ezer Mizion’s magical family retreat. The retreat was so special, moving, and healing.
“The minute we came, they piled treats on us. The kids were laughing and happy like they haven’t been for ages. They were receiving what I can’t give them now.
There were talks for the parents, and a stand-up comedian that made me laugh like I haven’t laughed for a long time.
The Ezer Mizion all-encompassing program was there for us in a big way.”
There’s life after a loss. It’s not easy but with Ezer Mizion at your side, you can live a full life alongside bereavement.
