Part of the Plan

The room was dark, aside from the glow of the screens and the soft light of the bedside lamp. My brother was lying on the bed, his skin a collage of greens and browns, only a pale shadow of his once rosy cheeks remained. White foam framed his mouth, which was held open by oxygen tubes. His eyes, half open were those of a dead man. His wife was sitting in the chair beside him softly reciting psalms, which was pretty much all  she did these days.

My entire family was there. Our eyes were glued to the monitor that kept track of his vitals, its glaring digits telling a brutal tale. The doctors had already told us that his days were numbered but you didn’t need to be a doctor to know that. If you saw my brother in the last week of his life, you knew that the devil had already laid his hand on him.

Then it happened. His numbers started falling like rocks bouncing down a steep decline. The alarms started buzzing. As the nurse rushed in, I swear I felt the angel of death squeeze between my sister and me and head to my brother’s bed.

My mother leaned over the bed and took my brother’s hand, then softly patted his head. Despite his age of 28, she spoke to him as if he were still the little boy she once doted on.  “Tatteleh, please try to hold on.”

He then took his last breath. We screamed Sh’ma Yisroel and Hashem Hu Elokim, it was Yom Kipur and Tisha B’av rolled into one. I hugged my sister and wept in her arms like a child. My mother held my little sister and cried the silent tears of a strong and faithful woman.

“We can feel sad, but not bitter or angry; that’s for people with no aibishter,” they said, as my brother’s dead body lay nearby, still warm. “There is a Creator and this is part of His plan.” But I did feel bitter. It hurt me to see my brother suffer, and then to see and feel the anguish of losing a child and sibling.

I did not suddenly stop believing in a Supreme Being because I saw suffering in the world. My family has experienced suffering from the time of my earliest memories, so pain does not negate the existence of a God. But it did finally confirm what kind of God he is. The childrens’ ward at a cancer hospital is not necessarily a proof against an omnipotent God, but if he does exist, it serves as a testament to his character.

I have no reason to be angry with God as I don’t think He played a part in any of this. I do however feel rage when my intelligence is offended by those who say He did. What twisted mind conceived of a world where it is important to tie your left shoe before your right but it is “part of a plan” for children to die before their parents?

When I hear of the Torah being written and the Mishanyos being studied in my brother’s memory the only image that comes to mind is a feckless victim being slapped across the face and all he can do is give the other cheek.

After a tiring day of sitting shiva, despite having visited with family and friends till two in the morning, fatigue was not what I was feeling. I felt terrified. I had just witnessed the untimely death of someone I loved. The prayers offered by his family and friends and the countless others who never knew him fell on the deaf ears of an indifferent God. I was mourning the death of someone not much older than myself and I realized how vulnerable I was to nature’s wrath. I was shaking with fear and there was no God to make me feel safe and protected. I felt alone and exposed.

I fell into bed and crept beside my wife, who, sensing my pain, drew me close. She was silent as there was nothing to be said. And in her comforting embrace I realized that while we there is no Higher Power to whom we can appeal in a time of need, the love of a fellow human can sustain us just the same.