It Could Have Been Me: In Memory of Helen Bailey

When I read about the brutal murder of Helen Bailey I knew right away that it could have been me. Helen Bailey (1964 - 2016) was a British author who wrote teen fiction. She was also a widow.

In 2011, at the age of 46 while on vacation in Barbados, Bailey's husband of 22 years died suddenly. He went into the sea for a morning swim, was caught in a riptide and drowned. In her own words she was still  a “wife at breakfast” and became a “widow by lunch."

In spite of her deep mourning, Bailey did everything within her power to get better and move on. She sought the help of a bereavement coach who helped her deal with her grief, she wrote a blog called Planet Grief, in which she detailed her struggle to cope with the sudden loss of her husband, and she joined an online support group for people who had lost their spouses.

And then something joyful happened, after eight months of widowhood she met through that group a  “gorgeous grey-haired widower" (her words), whose wife died suddenly in 2010.

Helen Bailey probably felt that she met a kindred spirit. They started out as friends, then grew closer, started dating and finally moved in together and bought an old house in Royston, Hertfordshire

According to her bereavement coach, Helen Bailey was a person who wanted to feel “secure and safe”, like she had with her late husband. She added that “there was never any inkling or sign that she was anything but safe” with her new partner.

It seems that after her world was shattered, she could rebuild her life with her new partner Ian Stewart. So in order to make him feel secure as  well, in case she died, Bailey changed her will and left him all her money, She gave him  power of attorney as well.

People love a happy ending, and there is nothing more heartwarming than a story about a  widow and a widower who find  love and happiness.

But on April 2016, Helen Bailey disappeared, and three months later her remains were found buried in the Royston house. Her new partner was charged with her murder.

I am almost certain that most of the people who read about Helen Bailey and her tragic death ask themselves how could she have been so naïve and so blind? Didn’t she suspect anything?

But to me as a widow it makes perfect sense:  I was not used to being suspicious, I had no reason to. Moreover, in the first year of mourning, when I was hungry for warmth and kindness, I trusted people even more. I can even identify with Bailey’s wish to insure the future of her new partner in the event of her death. Hadn't he suffered enough?

Actually, apart for the ending, my own biography is almost identical to that of Helene Bailey. My husband died when I was relatively young, I was helped by a kind bereavement coach, and like her, I found my partner another “gray haired gorgeous widower” online.

My partner and I were both safe and secure in our previous life, and that is why we  were not used to being suspicious. We were probably naïve, but we gained a lot by being able to trust each other.

This is a horrifying story for everyone, but it is especially scary for widows. Still l believe that it is better to be generous and trusting, like Helen Bailey, than to lose your faith in love and humanity. I am so sad that she was proven wrong.

The post appeared in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/it-could-have-been-me-in-memory-of-helen-bailey/

He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother

 FEB.27.2013 

The other night we talked in my women's group about sibling relationships. It was an evening full with emotions, I knew that it was a sensitive and emotional topic but I didn’t know that so many people had complex and loaded relationships with their brothers and sisters.

I shouldn’t be surprised , the earliest example of course is Abel and Cain, but when we move on to Jacob and Esau it doesn’t get any better. Even among women the situation is tensed as Rachel and Leah were married to Jacob and the jealousy among the sisters is reenacted in their children’s  attitude to the favored son Joseph.

According to an article The New Science of Siblings by Jeffrey Kluger  in Time Magazine 2006 “For a long time, researchers have tried to nail down just what shapes us--or what, at least, shapes us most. And over the years, they've had a lot of eureka moments. First it was our parents, particularly our mothers. Then it was our genes. Next it was our peers, who show up last but hold great sway. And all those ideas were good ones--but only as far as they went.

The fact is once investigators had strip-mined all the data from those theories, they still came away with as many questions as answers. Somewhere, there was a sort of temperamental dark matter exerting an invisible gravitational pull of its own. More and more, scientists are concluding that this unexplained force is our siblings.

Within the scientific community, siblings have not been wholly ignoredaling , but research has been limited mostly to discussions of birth order. Older sibs were said to be strivers; younger ones rebels; middle kids the lost souls. The stereotypes were broad, if not entirely untrue, and there the discussion mostly ended.”

Research has only recently started to look at the significance of our siblings in our life and the how they shape our identity..

My mother had three brothers and did everything within her power to maintain good relationship with them. Growing up she always talked about the importance of being close to my brother, the sentence ” we  won’t be around  forever, you two have to get along “ was one of her mantras (together with  always finish your work before you play so that you could enjoy it better).  Still by taking sides with my brother, my mother did not help matters much. 

When I became a mother the relationship between my girls became a major concern to me. My brother and I are 7 years apart and my daughters are only 20 months apart,  and they were raised almost like twins. As children they were very close but when they became adolescents they drew apart as each developed her own life.  When my daughters fought I tried not to take sides, but still they felt  that I did, maybe my mother also didn’t , but I always felt that she sided with my brother.

When I think of the close relationships between Dorothea and Celia in Middlemarch or between  Elinor and  Marianne in Sense and Sensibility it makes me sad that life doesn’t imitate art. But the other night with my group one member said that even if they break our heart, we are willing to give our siblings a second chance, something that we wouldn’t necessarily do even with our closest friends. This notion made me hopeful that within the family if we try hard enough we could reopen closed  doors.

  

From Time magazine

 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1209949,00.html

Transcending Private Loss

MAR.07.2013 

 When we lose a loved one we constantly need to feel his presence in our life, and at the same time we worry that with time we won’t remember everything about him. I know a widow whose urge to keep her husband near her was so strong that she chose to eternalize him in a life-size oil portrait. This is an example of a private way of remembrance; it emphasizes what was important to that bereaved woman at the time. Some people use the cemetery as a venue where they express their grief, and realize their wish to be close to their loved one. Thus they go there often, talk to the deceased and tend the grounds-- cleaning and planting flowers.

While this way of remembering helps the bereaved to stay close to her loved one (and  keeps the grave beautiful), it does not transcend personal sorrow. But if, for example, she was to use that urge to tend the grounds and grow, in another plot of land, herbs and vegetables for everyone to enjoy, then the remembrance becomes public. It could benefit the community and at the same time commemorate the private person--the one that she has lost.

Some families choose a more public way of remembrance: they donate money to an institute, or to a cause which reflects the beliefs of the deceased, other give away a sum of money to start a scholarship fund. These are worthy deeds and by doing them the family members feel that, in some way, they continue the life-work of their loved ones.

To my mind the disadvantage here is that the connection between the giver and the receiver is limited, we often don’t really know what the money is used for, and in the case of the scholarship this act benefits only a few.

My late husband Tzvi was a professor in Tel Aviv University and the founder of a large professional organization in Israel. In his last months, when we talked about his legacy he said that he didn't wish  us to do anything. Like many people in his situation, he argued that it was enough that we, his family, remembered him, and that he stayed alive in our hearts. So we respected his wish.

But when I got an invitation from that organization to an annual conference in his honor, I felt that we were given our plot of land.  It has been five years since Tzvi's passing and I and my daughters still miss him very much. We grieve our loss privately, but in this case, his students and colleagues chose to commemorate him through an active way of learning, one which benefits his community. By doing so the gain has been extended to many.

Another Look At Disappointments

 APR.04.2013 

How can I  minimize my disappointments ?

Last year when I took a coaching course aimed at working with people with ADHD I heard  Richard Lavoie (in the video When the Chips are Down) say that the worst thing you could tell a child is that he/she has disappointed you. I have thought about this idea for a long time and reached a conclusion that Lavoie was wrong, there are far worse things.

A disappointment for me is that gap between what I want and what I get; more than that, it is a condition of unmet expectations, broken promises and unfulfilled wishes. Yet, this state is actually a state of mind, an attitude, and therefore it is subjective. Since life is unpredictable, there are often unwelcome surprises,  and disappointments could be inevitable.

 A woman once  told me that she never got exactly what she wanted from the people she loved. This is a description of a permanent state of disappointment; holding this attitude seems unbearable. Yet I believe that her condition is the result of a too narrow definition of what she wants. Her specific view of her wishes is  puerile --"if I don’t get exactly what I want it doesn’t mean a thing". This attitude focuses on on that gap which I mentioned earlier.

 In order to move away from feeling disappointed I need to broaden my definition of a fulfilled wish.  I should open up my, sometime locked,  imagination to include less specific prenotions of what exactly it is that will make me happy.

Yet I  (perhaps I am not the only one) am not always  ready to give up on the state of being disappointed: it feels justified, and it is often a safe hiding place from life’s next blow.

Disappointments come in all shapes, sizes and colors; some are long term and other are topical,  and of course there is the big one of being disappointed in love which I would not discuss here.

This morning as I was sitting among boxes in a packed apartment waiting for the movers to come and move my daughter to a different city, I  got a text from the mover who announced simply that he was sorry, he didn’t feel well. How do I deal with such a disappointment?

 Here a scale in which we can measure the merit of the different parameters of a specific disappointment may prove helpful. In the case of the move I can conclude that although large in size, the disappointment  is short term in value-- it is not going to affect my wellbeing in the future.  Yet I can’t deny that the delay was  highly inconvenient and annoying.  So based on this quick calculation of value and size I restore  my grown-up sense of proportion and just make alternative plans.

In just one day we all encounter numerous occasions in which we do not get what we were hoping for: it means being alive. But using the proposed disappointments' scale could help minimize their effect and regulate the emotions.

Still there is no need to exaggerate in the damage caused by telling  a child, or an adult for that matter, that he/she has disappointed you or that you are disappointed, sometimes you have a good reason to be. The rest of the time, as disappointed  people are not fun to be around, I keep reminding  myself “stiff upper lip”.

A Skype Mother

 APR.21.2013

Thirty  some years ago when the US was still across the ocean, I left my parents in Israel and travelled with my husband to the US to attend graduate school. Living abroad at that time meant being disconnected from everything that was going on in Israel.  

 Every week I wrote long  letters to my parents  and reported all the details of our new life; they were filled with longing and love. The letters that my parents wrote back expressed similar sentiments, but they never questioned our decision to go away or doubted the merit of advancing our education abroad.

However, the idea that one should sacrifce being geographically close to family in order to advance a career or achieve a better life is not shared by everyone. When I wrote my PhD on the connection between life and literature in 1950s Britain, I was surprised to discover  a different reality in Family and Kinship in East London, a 1957 sociological study by Michael Young and Peter Willmott reporting on the life of working classes in Britain. Young and Wilmot  found that  being close to the mother was one of the most important considerations in finding housing, and that young people tended to stay within walking distance from their mothers.

Although I was very close to my  mother, staying nearby was never a a factor in my considerations of where to live.  I took for granted that in order to move ahead we needed to move away, and my parents agreed with me. Only later when I was already a mother myself, I would sit down to have a cup of coffee in the morning and think “What am I doing here? I could have had this cup of coffee with my mom”

We went back to Israel in 1994 and I had two good years to enjoy the company of my mother, but she died in 1996. To this day I regret all those years that I missed not being close to her.

Then, following our footsteps, in 2000 my 18-year-old daughter left Israel to study in Germany. At the time there was still very little internet connection, and Skype had not yet been invented. She had to wait a whole month for a phone, and I got a chance to experience what my mother must have felt: a nagging feeling of  worry and longing mixed together with happiness that my daughter was moving ahead with her life.

My two daughters are in the US now and we connect through email, Skype, Facebook and cellular phone. Thanks to video chat I can even see them when we talk.  Moreover, it seems that social network has trained young people in the art of documenting their life. They devote time to report what they do and attach appropriate photos.

People complain that the cheerful public persona reflected from Facebook, for example, is never the real person, but didn’t we write letters to our parents and report that all was well even when it wasn’t, as to not make them to worry?

Since to connect with my daughters we use all the technology available, we can detect even small worries from the hello on the phone to the frown in a video chat. The readily available technology is the “spoonful of sugar” that makes the distance between us “go down.” But still when I sit down for coffee in the middle of the morning now I miss my two daughters who are busy making a life for themselves over sea.

The Best Parenting Advice: Sorry Teacher I Don't Work For You

 MAY.16.2013 

Parents are forever giving needed and unneeded advice to their children: we always remember Polonius’ advice to Laertes:

"Give your thoughts to yourself,

And don’t act without thinking. . . 

Listen to what every man says, but speak to few.

Take each man's opinion, but reserve your judgment”

 But when I was a young mother  I too was very fortunate "to listen" to an experienced mother and a teacher and to "take her opinion". Her advice proved crucial to my relationship with my daughters and to the wellbeing of my whole family.

My two daughters grew up in Iowa City where my husband was a young professor at the university of Iowa. It was his first job out of graduate school and we moved there when my older daughter was a baby.  When she was about two and a half we were looking for a preschool for her. Since in Iowa City all the public preschools took children only at the age of three she went to a private preschool which was part of a music school.  This special preschool met 3 times a week for two hours and did a lot of music activities with the children. The teacher asked us if our child would like to learn an instrument.  In the preschool they taught the children to play violin/ cello/ piano in the Suzuki method at a very early age. Since her older cousin played the violin my daughter asked to play that instrument.

That is how, without noticing, we entered the very competitive world of music through a tiny back door.  The two major principles of the Suzuki method are that the child learns to play by ear and that she never practices on her own. One parent has to be the teacher at home, and since my poor husband was tone deaf I was that parent.  Thus for years I practiced the violin and the cello with my daughters. We got up every day at 6 am so that they could practice before going to school and would be free (I wrote about chores at my post Between Chores and Personal Freedom) once they got back home.

What started as a childhood activity became a major  part of our life when my daughters became a little older and the teachers started to put more pressure to practice longer and harder.  Then one day I was talking with another mother who was older and experienced. She had four daughters who played musical instruments.  Here is her advice:

 “Practice at home with your girls,

 but be careful not to side with their teacher.

You have to live with your daughters

and not with their teacher.

Love your girls and don't push them,

thus you'll enjoy a happy and healthy family life”.

This sounds like an easy and logical advice and I really wanted to implement it. But as a young mother I found that it was a challenge to “to reserve my judgment”. The desire to help the girls realize their potential made it hard for me to resist the teachers and not to push. But whenever I forgot myself my husband was there to make sure that I heeded the advice of the other mother.  He reminded me that I “worked with my daughters and not for their teachers” .

With age my daughters started to practice on their own and they assumed responsibility for their music education. And today, thanks to that advice, music is still a happy part of my daughters’ life.

Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry" or When in Doubt Apologize

The other day I was talking to my daughter and my son-in-law. Trying to make a point, I paraphrased the line “love means never having to say you're sorry." They stared at me blankly, they had never read the book Love Story, or watched the movie. I am not saying that this was a masterpiece, but culturally speaking, the novel  was a building block of my adolescence. I believe that most people of my generation, even in Israel, had heard those lines before. 

 I remembered that the line was said by the heroine, but checked in Wikipedia and  found that  “the line is spoken twice in the film: once in the middle of the film, by Jennifer Cavilleri (MacGraw's character), when Oliver Barrett (O'Neal) is about to apologize to her for his anger; and as the last line of the film, by Oliver, when his father says "I'm sorry" after learning of Jennifer's death. In the script the line is phrased slightly differently: "Love means not ever having to say you're sorry."

Clearly we don’t need to discuss the veracity of this line, but since the quote and the book/film behind it are forgotten, perhaps it is an opportunity to say something about the importance of saying “I am sorry” to our loved ones. I feel that perhaps we don’t apologize to our loved ones often enough.

Moreover, since it is so difficult sometimes to apologize, a new type of pretend apology was invented. For me, saying  “I am sorry that you feel that way,” is one of the most infuriating forms of communication --- it is better not to apologize and to say nothing.  By saying that, you distance yourself from the act and shed any responsibility for its consequences. An example:  once I invited some family members over for dinner, one of whom was vegetarian. As I wanted that guest to feel welcome I worked hard on cooking appropriate dishes. When it was time for dinner she did not show up, her partner came on his own. When I commented that I wished I had known ahead of time, and saved myself all the trouble of cooking, her partner said: “I am sorry that you feel hurt.” Now I was angry; what was missing here was taking responsibility for the action. It was as though all that had happened was inside my head, and  the other person had nothing to do with it. However, a simple “I am sorry that we didn’t let you know and you worked so hard" would have made all the difference

You don't  have  to say that you are sorry if you never  hurt,  criticize, get angry, or slight your loved ones, but I would like to meet that saint. Often we are careful not to hurt strangers but take for granted  those who are the closest to us. Since no one really believes that in true love apologies are unnecessary, I would recommend that when in doubt, apologize.  You and those around you will feel better. I doubt that they think that “saying sorry means that you don’t love them.”

My Daughters' Little Brother or From Dallas to the Holy Land

 JUL.15.2013 

When my girls were young my older daughter was afraid of dogs. Full disclosure: she wasn’t the only one, my husband wasn’t that comfortable around them either. In order to cure their fear, I suggested that we get a dog. As a devoted father, my husband  agreed and we looked for a small dog that was good with children. 

Wolfie, our toy Pomeranian, became  my daughters’ little brother. We got him when he was 7 months old  and since then his tiny paws have hardly touched the floor. My daughters carried him around in their arms (or tucked under their arms), made him rest in their laps and sleep in their beds. He was never left alone and they even dressed him up in their baby clothes. When finally the girls were away at school the exhausted dog spent the day resting.  

Several days prior to his arrival my younger daughter got up  in the morning and said “I dreamt that we had a little dog and his name was  Wolfgang” and so it was. Wolfgang Amadeus Raz was welcomed to our family, and like that other genius, his name was shortened to Wolfie.

Wolfie was a true Texan. Born and partly raised in Dallas, he came from a lineage of pure breed champion show dogs. But since he was born with several defects (an over-bite and a weak knee), he was sold as a pet.  His breeders looked for a good family to adopt him, and before we  were chosen our whole family had to pass an interview. Even on the night when we took Wolfie home my girls had yet another grooming lesson, and had to promise one last time that  they would take good care of the dog, which they always did. . 

The newcomer Wolfie had already been neutered when he joined our family. Sometimes when my husband felt frustrated in being surrounded only by women in our family, he would turn to little Wolfie and commiserate “the men in this family are in the minority and even you, my friend, are fixed.”  It wasn’t a very politically correct statement, but our good-natured  Wolfie didn’t mind.

At the age of 3 Wolfie crossed the Atlantic and immigrated to the holy land with us. Like the rest of the family, he had to get used to the change and to be adaptable. Instead of a big house with a swimming pool, two-car garage, and a large garden in the suburbs of Fort-Worth, his new home was a tiny  2 bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor of a building in the center of Tel Aviv. Moving into town also meant that he no longer heard the sound of summer cicadas in an otherwise silent night; the constant noise of cars and sirens kept him awake at night.

Having Wolfie with us made the move to Israel much easier, as he was always there waiting for my girls when they came back from school, and new friends were happy to come over and play with the friendly dog.

 Tel Aviv remained a scary place for Wolfie. He didn’t like to take walks anymore, and was terrified of crossing  the road.  Unlike my girls who eventually got used to Tel Aviv and loved it, he never became a city dog. It was a great relief for him once we moved to the suburbs and Wolfie resumed being a Texan dog. 

In retrospect, I wonder why did we buy a pure-breed dog, instead of taking a rescue from a shelter? How come that a young  Toyota Corolla family owned a Rolls-Royce dog? But revisiting this decision, I realize that we wanted to minimize risks and to make sure we got a dog with a known personality from people who  loved him. 

 Children often ask for a dog but later, lose interest and let their parents assume responsibility caring for the pet. For us getting Wolfie was one of the best decisions we made as a family. Perhaps it was because of Wolfie’s lovely personality, but even when we lived on the third floor with no elevator in Tel Aviv, my daughters felt that it was a privilege to take care of Wolfie.  And if you can believe it, in spite of his minute size, our Wolfie cured all the members of my family of their fear of dogs.

Whose Money Is It Really?

 AUG.25.2013

The last time my father saw his parents and his brother Emanuel was in 1934,  when he was 21 years old. My father had worked for a Jewish firm  in Berlin, and when the firm was transferred to Palestine he moved with them. Immigration to British Mandate Palestine was banned, but some Jewish businesses were granted a certificate, and this is how my father was saved from the Nazis. My father’s younger brother Ignaz miraculously survived the war and multiple concentration camps, and settled in Germany. In 1956, twenty-two years after they had last seen each other, my father boarded a ship to go visit him.

In the fifties, Israel and West Germany signed a reparation agreement, and my father was granted compensation for the property that he had lost. At that time they were big demonstrations against signing the agreement, and my father too did not want to take any money. My mother, who immigrated to Israel in 1935 from Romania with her parents and enjoyed the support of a loving family, told him: “you can’t refuse the money, it is not for you but for your children,” so my father agreed.

My mother believed that as my father was deprived of his inheritance and the support of his parents, the money from the reparations could at least compensate for the financial loss. My mother, usually a mild and understated woman, was adamant about accepting the reparation money. Thanks to that money my brother was able to get expensive cello lessons, I got my teeth straightened, and we were able to buy an apartment. Only twenty years later did my parents  take their first trip together, when they were already in their fifties.

When my parents died they left me a small inheritance, which was more than I had expected. While I am grateful for their love and concern, I am also sad that they did not take more trips and vacations while they were still young enough to enjoy them. But I also find that in a curious way, my mother's advice and example is always there to remind me not to be too relaxed with [my?] money.

  

P.S 

Some time ago I read with my students an article by Jeff D. Opdyke  (Family Money: "Whose Inheritance Is It Anway?" Financial Times  8.10.2004); it dealt with the question of inheritance, how much money should  parents leave their children. The writer, a young man, noticed that several friends of his were worried that their parents were spending  all "their” inheritance money.  He asked his own father how he felt about that issue. The father said that he believed that if children behaved decently toward their parents it was their responsibility to leave the children some of what they themselves had received as an inheritance. I asked my students to write their opinion about this issue, unlike the friends of the Financial Times’  writer, many responded that they they wanted their parents to enjoy their  money.

An Unexpected Boon

 - SEP.22.2013 - 

Almost two years after my husband’s passing I got a surprising email from a woman with a familiar name.  Although I had never met her, I knew of her existence, heard stories about her and even saw her photo together with my husband, as she was his first great love.

My husband and I met when we were 22 and 19 respectively, he was a first year student at the university and I was a soldier. Thus, that love had taken place when they even younger. But these were the days around the Yom Kippur War (1973) and  young  people were serious, anxious, and intense. I never doubted the depth of their feelings or the significance of their relationship.

Throughout the years my husband mentioned her but never expressed a wish to seek her out. Also her family name was a very common name in Israel, and it was would have been quite a challenege to track her down.

Thinking back I don’t remember ever feeling jealous of the love that my husband had for her. The two of us met six months after the war and a short while after they parted.  I felt sorry for his plight, going through a war, combined with the grief over the loss of his love. 

When my husband got ill,  I had a sudden urge to let her know, but I didn’t mention it to him, and then suddenly he said that he was thinking of her.

After my husband died I remembered her again, but had no idea where to find her. Part of the magic of their love was that they met outside their ordinary life in time of war and did not have even a single friend in common.

Then came her email, she only wrote that she had known my husband before his university days, nothing else about their past. She added that she was very sorry, that she has just then found out.  I wrote back telling her how much my husband loved her, and that we, his family, knew what she has meant to him. We arranged to speak and then to meet.

From the first time that we met we felt a bond; like me she is a widow who lost her husband to cancer. In other respects we are not alike, but we both loved the same man. 

This month we commemorate 40 years to the Yom Kippur War; the men of my generation are still haunted by the trauma of this war. In retrospect I believe that for my husband the bitter memories of those turbulent times were somewhat alleviated by the sweetness of his first love.

And I got unexpected boon when this new/old  friend entered  into my life willing to share with me an unknown chapter of my husband’s past. 

Keywords:

Best Friends Are Forever?

TOCT.04.2013 

My mom’s best friend called me on my mother’s birthday to let me know that she hasn’t forgotten that date. The friend is 97 year old and my mother has been dead for almost 20 years. Still I wasn’t surprised, isn’t that what  best friends are all about, to be there for you forever and ever?

My mother met her friend in Tel Aviv in the 1930s when they were young and single. They  have remained best friends throughout their lives and  for us, the children, she has always been family. If, like my mother, we are lucky to have a best friend in our adult life, she is often closer than a sibling, we trust her completely, and depend on her for affirmation, strength, and advice. We may even share with her secrets that we won't tell our partner. 

Perhaps because of its significance, "a best friend" is quite a complicated institution, and the attitude to its mere existence is ambivalent. For example, husbands, who are aware of the power and influence of their wife's best friend, sometime see  her as a threat which could  undermine their marriage. Moreover, they could feel that she sees through them, knows all their faults, and her compassion and  loyalty always lie with the wife.

Ambivalence is also an intrinsic part of the relationship itself; one of its manifestations is expectaions. Such strong emotional bond between best friends entails high expectations, and when those are not met it could lead to deep disappointment. 

Thus it may not be surprising that in spite of its depth and intensity,  friendship among women has traditionally been disparaged. The Victorian writer Charlotte Yonge observed in 1878: “It has been said that women are less capable of real friendship than men, and certainly historical friendships, such as existed between even Greeks of the highest type, do not appear to have been known amongst women; but this is because woman in her degraded state, uneducated and only her husband’s foremost slave, was incapable of more than gossip and rivalry with her fellow-women. Friendship could not begin till woman was refined and elevated.  .  . It requires that the woman should have a mind, and should go beyond the actual interest of dress, marriage and family, in order to have substance enough to make a real friendship with man or woman”

The great feminist Vera Brittain also noted that historically friendship between women has been underestimated by society: “From the days of Homer the friendships of men have enjoyed glory and acclamation, but the friendships of women, in spite of Ruth and Naomi, have usually been not merely unsung, but mocked, belittled and falsely interpreted” (1942).

Similar conclusions were found in sociological studies, conducted around the middle of the twentieth century. Graham Allan suggested in 1989 that relationships between women tend to be viewed through the prism of negative conventional images and stereotypes, with their actuality usually masked in a fashion that favors the interests of more powerful groupings.

Lately social scientists have finally acknowledged close friendship among women as the most individualized and unregulated social relation. I am sure that all of us who have a best friend will agree with that conclusion.

When my best friend of over  30 years ceased to be my friend, I mourned  that loss and the void it has left in my life. But while death is final, there is always hope that with your best friend things will somehow, miraculously, be restored to the way they were, didn’t we say that a best friend is forever? 

"Call The Midwife:" Nurse Matilda

Recently I heard of several women in their early 40s who grew weary of the business world and decided to go back to school and study nursing. They felt an urge to make a difference and to do a meaningful work. Hospitals in Israel offer today a shortened nursing course for university graduates in mid-career who are ready to make such a change.

Traditionally nursing, together with teaching and social work, was one of the few career choices open for women. The inspiring book by Jennifer Worth, and BBC British TV series it is based on “Call the Midwife,” portray a vivid and accurate picture of life of a nurse in the East End of London in the 1950s. At that time in Britain only 1% of women went to university and only 2% went to professional training courses like nursing.  

A few years earlier across the sea, my mother was such a nurse  in Mandatory Palestine . Like Worth’s midwives, she was always passionate about nursing and proud of her vocation. In 1936 two new hospitals were founded in Palestine, one in Jerusalem and one in the area of Tel Aviv,  and they also offered nursing training. My mother, who immigrated with her family a year earlier, was one of the first nurses to be trained in Palestine.  At that time nurses had to board at the dorms in the hospital and were not allowed to marry in the 3 years of their training. Although my mother had met my father soon after she arrived to Palestine, she only married him 7 years later after graduating from nursing school.

I know that my grandfather insisted that my mother, his only daughter, would pursue further education, but am not sure why, especially as her brothers did not go to university.  I would like to think that he believed in education and wanted her to have a profession so she could be financially independent and would not have to rely on a man. But perhaps, like Rachel’s father Laban, he wanted to test my father's love and endurance.

Only when I grew up I started to appreciate my mother's  determination and diligence; it was close to impossible to be accepted to nursing school in Palestine at that time. There were only the two schools and being a new immigrant she didn’t know the necessary Hebrew. She applied at least two times, but as her Hebrew was not good enough, her application was rejected.  She worked even harder on her language skills and finally was accepted in 1939. 

Like in Britain in the 1950s where only 25% of the mothers worked outside the home, growing up in the in Israel at that time, not many of our mothers worked outside the home. My mother worked as a nurse in our community until she retired, and even afterwards she continued to attend professional lectures because she was curious to learn about new professional developments.

 Although as a child I complained when we went out and people would stop my mother in the street  asking  for medical and personal advice,  I was proud of her knowledge and empathy. I believe that these  two qualities are essential for a nurse, and perhaps they explain my grandfather’s decision: he was sure that my mother had the empathy but helped her acquire the necessary knowledge.  

In honor of my mother, nurse Matilda

Photos: my mother in the hospital during nursing training, with a friend on the right side, graduation my mother is in the center.

PS. The British Mandate in Palestine lasted  from 1920 until 1948, at that year David Ben Gurion declared its independence and the state of Israel was established..

"Man Plans And God Laughs": Home Renovation And Bereavement

 NOV.06.2013 - 12:26 AM

After our two daughters had left home my husband Tzvi and I decided to downsize-- to move from our  house in the suburbs to a smaller one in town. It was going to be a happy move, an opportunity to be centrally located while still having a house with a garden.

In a green neighborhood  just outside Tel Aviv, we found the perfect house. It was an old semi- detached that needed a lot of work: in Israeli terms "old" means about 60 year old. We were thrilled, we knew that this was the place where we would spend many happy years together, and in February we signed the contract.

 However, as the Yiddish proverb goes “man plans and God laughs,” a week after we committed ourselves to buying the house Tzvi was diagnosed with lung cancer. Still we worked on the plans for the  new house together, it was our light in an otherwise very dark period. Originally we planned two studies, and  I remember my heart sinking when he told me one day “I don’t believe that you would need that second study,” I didn’t want to hear it.

On Tzvi’s last day in July he was busy saying good bye to friends and family, he also signed the final papers for the sale of our house in the suburbs to make sure that my move  to the new house would go smoothly.

Taking possession of the new house occurred on the day when I got up from the Shiva, and two days later, on the first day of August, the renovation began. I was grateful for this project, it forced me to be sharp and stay focused in order to take the necessary decisions and make the right choices. I was very fortunate because the architect and the builder, who were aware of my plight, were kind and generous. They took special care of me and we worked together in perfect harmony.

 I have not seen renovation mentioned as a prescribed medicine for bereavement, but for me, (although I was still angry with Him for laughing at our plans) it was “God sent.” It is almost a cliche as the word "renovation" has within it the root "renewal." Indeed as we demolished and built new walls gradually turning  a building site into  a home, I realized that my shattered life was also taking a new form. It gave me new hope for the future.

This was the beginning of my recovery, and  in less than three months, at the end of October, I moved into my new house. I remember waking up on that first morning -- boxes everywhere,  telling myself “this is where my new life starts.”

Each year, around this time,  when I mark another anniversary to my house, I reflect on my circumstances in the summer of 2007, and am thankful for the project and the kindness of people who helped me get back on my feet. But most of all, like Virginia Woolf, I am just happy to have “A Room of One's Own. “

I Love You And You And You X Twenty

Now that Valentine Day is safely behind us perhaps it is time to question one of the less savory customs associated with this special day.

The simple question “will you be my Valentine? is honest and specific.  I tell you that I love you and ask if you feel the same way about me. This question is directed to only one person-- you.

But when my daughters were told to prepare Valentine cards for their whole class, I had to wonder what does this practice really teach them?

My first introduction to this type of socialistic Valentine happened when my daughters were in elementary school in Texas. Several days prior to February 14th they came home and said that we should buy card boards, glitters and colorful markers in order to make "Valentines." Their teachers instructed them to make one for every student in the class so that no one would feel left out.

Don’t get me wrong, generally I am a firm believer in inclusion, but  in this case, as my girls sat down to work, painstakingly cuting and decorating twenty cards, I felt that there was something wrong with this custom.

In every class there are the  bullies, and  children who are just not very nice, is there no choice in the matter? Why do they deserve a Valentine card from a class member who may not even like them?

If teachers aspire that each child would feel loved why don't they ask the parents to prepare a special Valentine card in honor of their child instead of forcing class mates to make them? 

The Biblical commandment "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” (Leviticus 19:18) is one of the basic principles of a civilized society as it emphasizes the importance of treating our fellow man fairly and respectfully. But Valentine Day is not about neighborly love, it is the one day in the year which is dedicated to true love and romance, do we wish to dilute it by making it non-personal and generic? Do we want our children to feel guilty about having a discriminating taste? Moreover, when they become teenager would we like them to go out with people they do not care for because they would not want to hurt their feelings? Or even worse, do we want them to believe that it is not ok to say no?

 In western culture Valentine Day is a sad day for those people who do not have a special person in their life. Thus all the Valentine cards which they had received in their childhood would not shelter them from feeling lonely.

I feel that the day of love is best celebrated as an intimate occasion without generic cards professing meaningless sentiments. And if children take part in the festivities of Valentine Day, they should be encouraged to express their feelings towards the people they care about freely and genuinely.