{"id":5615,"date":"2020-09-30T14:21:10","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T18:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/?p=5615"},"modified":"2020-09-30T14:21:10","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T18:21:10","slug":"the-lego-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/the-lego-man\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lego Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A garbage truck stops and its driver jumps out. He had noticed a familiar car on the road. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a generous bill he had been saving, hands it to Maor Cohen and, in seconds he is back at his job. \u201cWhat\u2019 s this?\u201d Maor call s out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the children. The children with cancer at Ezer Mizion. To buy them a lego set.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The maintenance man is not the only one. Hundreds of others throughout Israel have heard of Maor Cohen and contribute so that there will not be a shortage of lego sets. He is known at Ezer Mizion as the Lego Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all began when Maor was six years old. His father suffered from cardiac problems and, in Maor\u2019s words, the fact that I saw my father at breakfast was no guarantee that he would be there for supper. Maor\u2019s childhood was fraught with terror each time his father was hospitalized. He needed a \u2018security blanket\u2019 and discovered it in lego. The imaginative creativity needed, the planning, the envisioning of a future all served to provide that security for the traumatized child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he didn\u2019t forget. As an adult, he understood the fears of a child whose parent, sibling or maybe he himself is battling cancer. He saw that for them, too, lego eased the terror and banished the monsters lurking in their psyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It began with one lego set, with a once-a-week visit to Ezer Mizion. Now Maor visits 4, 5 times per week. it may be the kids at Ezer Mizion\u2019s Oranit, its guest home for families battling cancer. And when these kids are hospitalized, he visits them in the hospital. The social workers all know him and contact him when a child is down. Just being told that the Lego Man is on his way is enough to put a grin on a face that hadn\u2019t smiled in days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There he is on one of his visits. \u201cI was waiting for you,\u201d shouts a beaming, young boy. \u201cBut first I have to go for an ultrasound. You\u2019ll wait?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Another child joyfully greets him. \u201cI knew you\u2019d come! I just knew it! I knew you\u2019d come for my birthday!\u201d His mother had promised to ask the Lego Man but she hadn\u2019t been able to bring herself to make that phone call to the obviously so very busy Maor Cohen so she procrastinated. The mother\u2019s joy was no less than her son\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maor has dealt with hundreds of kids. He loves them and they love him back. Each one becomes part of him and it hurts \u2013 a lot \u2013 when one of them doesn\u2019t make it. He remembers H. a boy who would give him from his own money to buy a lego set for other kids. \u201cH. is gone now. His mother and I speak of his generosity under such circumstances. We both cry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maor keeps pictures of \u2018his\u2018  kids. As he gazes at some, tears fill his eyes. He remembers one who recently passed away. The hospital had told the parents to take him home and enjoy him as long as you can. The child absorbed the mood in the home. When Maor saw his face, he asked him, \u201c Do you like Fireman Sam?\u201d In a flash, Maor was off to pick one up. He was so gratified to see the \u2018light   go on\u2019 this child\u2019s face as he handed him the package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think of the ones who didn\u2019t make it often. I know they\u2019re in heaven now. I just hope they have lego there.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A garbage truck stops and its driver jumps out. He had noticed a familiar car on the road. He reaches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4,974,889],"class_list":["post-5615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancer-support-division","tag-cancer","tag-cancer-support","tag-lego-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5617,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5615\/revisions\/5617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}