“There are no mates in grief.”
I used to think that you are essentially alone when trouble comes.
Usually that’s true.
People temporarily “appear” in these hard seasons. They help, they cry with you.
But after some time you are all alone there.
You and your calamity.
Nothing wrong in that.
People can not take you through it.
You walk that path alone.
With the corona disaster it is different!
You are not alone.
Disaster is common. One for the whole universe.
I see people on TV (no matter where in the world), and I recognize myself in them.
I absolutely understand that they feel what’s happening to them at this moment.
And they look at us (from their TVs) and also understand everything.
Without words, without translation, without long prologue.
I have never experienced this feeling, that the whole world lives your life.
Your stairwell neighbor, the English Prime Minister, a man from Australia, famous sport start or … just name it!
Day, thoughts, feelings, problems, restrictions, joys and troubles, quarantine and its measures – everything is identical for everyone! In the whole world…
You are in their shoes!
They are in yours.
A tremendous feeling.
We are all equal! (without communism! :-))
Neither your position (whether you are an English prince or a waiter in a bar),
Neither your financial situation (whether you are Rockefeller or a regular clerk),
Neither your IQ (whether you are genius or ordinary-thinking person),
Even (!) not your age (young people also die from this disaster).
ALL above mean nothing in that calamity.
We are all equal.
And that has united us all as nothing else could worldwide.
When you understand the person, you are one unit…
Remember the good old movie: “What is happiness? … it’s when someone understands you …”?
I remember having a similar feeling during the struggle for the life of Yonatan (my son).
Then it was a battle with cancer, leukemia.
I remember that I wrote, “the disease equalized us all (meaning our roommates).”
As soon as you take off “your” clothes and put on the hospital pajamas, you immediately lose all your uniqueness, all your titles are not relevant. All your (financial) reaches are meaningless. You are a patient. A fighter for life – that’s your (and your roommates) new and only title.
And the hospital roommate is your buddy because he understands you.
Others? No, they visit, empathize, encourage and help but no, they do not understand.
I remember that room in the hospital, where we were all together – Jews, Arabs, Druze, Orthodox religious and secular, and we were together.
All the tinsel fell away, the essence stayed.
You go out into the street from such a children’s cancer children and you see tens, hundreds, thousands of people there who don’t understand… everything in their life is different … and thank God for that!
But today: here – the whole world – is one common ward!
Everyone understands everyone!
The whole world goes through this calamity.
And yet…
What helps to endure?
For me – only God Himself.
Psalm 91
(I) will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday…
(as)
He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.