It’s tempting to bypass the distressing feelings and skip straight to declarations of emunah. But true emunah requires facing pain and ambivalence, and only then transcending them
Some stories bear repeating. This is one of them. Close to 20 years ago my family made the difficult and painful decision to relocate my sister Ahuva, who has Down syndrome, to an assisted-living HASC home in Brooklyn. This meant sending her hundreds of miles away without the reassurance of steady visits to see how she was acclimating.
The decision was torturous, the goodbye heartbreaking. We settled her into the competent care of the staff, took our leave, and returned home, willing our hearts to catch up with our minds, which knew this was the right decision.
A few days later, I called her to see how she was doing. Babbling as I do when I feel guilty and scared, I blurted out, “So, Ahuva, do you like New York or do you miss home?”
And Ahuva, in her simplicity and depth, taught me more than six years’ worth of training had, with one single word: “Both,” she said.
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