When Ora (a terror victim) Met Dina (a volunteer with the NATAL home visit project)
”
In my painful silences and in my moments of sadness, in the aches that my body spoke and expressed – you, with your listening, your patience and your tolerance, gently asked and inquired whether you could help. I sensed and felt how much you were with me during the time that we had, and beyond. You have the power to reach a person’s soul, and every time I discovered this anew – how you were able to see my inner “me” while I could not see it, while I told you about all of my life’s sad experiences and about long periods of suffering.
You listened, and tears flowed from your eyes while I could no longer cry. You cried for me and I felt you, how you were a partner in my pain, and if there is anyone in this world who wanted, at that moment, to take the moments of suffering and pain from me, it was you – you who know how to listen, patiently. With every fiber of your being you where there for me, by my side, even when our meeting was at an end.
There were other meetings, too – different ones, with much joy and just a little sadness. Always, you had the ability to show me a different perspective on things.
You shared your reality with me, too, and then I learned that those who come to give also have a life story – no less painful, and that if we so choose, it is possible to change a way of life and a way of thinking, and to arrive at different places, places that are better for ourselves.
What we invite upon ourselves, at different points in life, does indeed come knocking on our door and on our head; it comes to tell us something. If you were once hurt, then you have the power to get up and to live anew. You have powers – get up and discover them. If you were hurt again, this time more severely – you fall, and all of your inner strength falls with you. You become submerged in a world that is different from what you know; you feel the pain in your bones. You live on pills so that you can maintain some sort of sanity, which actually isn’t real sanity. Until the next hurt – this time from someone who, as I see it, is witness to my writing these words; the man who manages to continue causing such hurt that I understand now, better than ever before, why I made the choice of getting up and saying, “No more”. No more will a person like this be part of my life. I prefer death to pain from a person who, at that time of our lives, was my entire world, and who hurt me and left me with scars so painful that to this day, when I write to you, it’s hard for me to breathe.
But – as you have come to know me – I continue.
I continue to live life as it should be, and I can tell you that for some time I’ve been filled with the joy of tiring, calming activity. I chose to leave the kindergartens and to find work close to home. I’m currently caring for 5-month old twins, all week, and I’m finding enormous satisfaction in raising two amazing, beautiful girls. They fill my days and give me much joy with their smiles, and even with their tears.
As to my own daughter, I bought her a piano, and she’s learning at home. She’s showing amazing, surprising progress; she has a very good teacher. There’s excellent chemistry between them, and it’s wonderful to see my Tamar happy.
I’ll write to you again after I’ve learned to stop waiting for Mondays (home visit days). I sometimes feel that I’m still experiencing separation, that I’m not yet ready to let go, and that’s why on Mondays, while I’m waiting, I run your visits through my mind; I sit in the same chair and converse with myself until I get tired and part from the time and from Monday, and continue with the day after.”
14.12.07
“For me, work brings some balance into a life that I get sucked into. When evening comes I’m still looking for quiet – not just the quiet that’s inside my house, but quiet in my body and soul. Sometimes I can touch it, sometimes not, but I’m learning that there are other ways of feeling that quiet, which also brings with it the calm and tranquility that I seek with all of my being. Sometimes I find in a song that I hear on the radio, or in reading the Song of Songs, or a chapter of Psalms, or a book to which I am drawn once again – that quiet that calms every part of me.
So you can understand from my letters that I continue on my way with the hope that one day I’ll get to a place where I’ll feel that there’s nothing to fear, because whatever God prepares for us – and we for ourselves – ends up happening, one way or another.
Dina, I’m writing to you and telling you what’s happening with me, and I always think about what’s happening with you – how you’re feeling and where the gift has moved on to, and who you’re visiting every week and causing to feel that which you caused me to feel during every one of our meetings.
So, until the next letter, I’ll say goodnight – and, actually, good morning.”
12.04.08
“This evening, after I returned from going out with Tamar, I sat down to watch a show by Boaz Sharabi on Channel 2. The show was recorded at the amphitheater in Caesaria, and in between the songs and the words there were moments when I felt so alone, and there were moments when I could hum along, and moments that moved me to tears and brought up memories of the past. And there was a sharp stab to the heart, and at that moment there was no-one by me with whom I could share my feelings. This is something that’s difficult for me, each time over again, because life is going by and there are many stations where I feel that I already need more. I hear the songs that say, “You still love me”, “Giving your soul and your heart”, “I’m alright; no-one dies of love anymore” that flow through my veins together with the tunes and reach the deepest places. It’s not easy to have these experiences of aloneness, but that’s life and I go on living, and with all of that – you’re always with me.
See, I’m writing to you and telling you about what’s happening with me, and I always stop for a moment to think what you would say about my pain, my feelings…
Pesach has already passed, and Purim before that. It was a difficult time. All of the explosions going off took me back to the difficult times, and I had to take pills so that I could calm down and be more balanced, and at least sleep a few more hours, to be able to get up for another day of work.
Yours, Ora.”
20.04.08
The volunteer who undertook the house visits speaks:
The caller made contact after having suffered a very serious injury, when a bus exploded next to her in Jerusalem. She and her infant daughter were injured. She underwent a series of operations, was rehabilitated, and went back to work.
A year later, there was another terrorist attack in the same area. This time she was not injured, but the original trauma returned. As a result, her situation deteriorated: she stopped working, separated from her husband, shut herself in her home, couldn’t sleep, suffered pains throughout her body, images kept coming back and replaying themselves in her head, severe depression.
After several sessions via the NATAL telephone hotline, she was offered some home visits, with a view to alleviating her loneliness and helping her to get back to living.
I visited her for two years, once a week, for two hours each time. At first the visits were at her home; afterwards we would go out together to a park or for a walk.
I found a woman who is beautiful, intelligent, with broad horizons, but extinguished, huddled within herself, devoid of energy. The only spark of light in her life was her daughter.
In our meetings and our conversations, I felt great empathy towards her. I brought listening and containment for what she was and for the place where she was at this point in her life. I lit up corners and angles of thinking that she had not previously been capable of seeing, and slowly the outside world opened up to her and her inner world began to emerge. She connected with her strengths, refused to despair at every setback, her eyes started to smile again, and she was able to laugh. She went back to work, went out to attend lectures, began volunteering at her daughter’s school, and forged new social ties.
Light came back into her life – slowly and intermittently.
An example of the change and development that she underwent is evident in her own words: “… And the truth is that this time I allowed myself (to be submerged), because I know that I’ve suffered setbacks before, and from there I rose up high…”.
In my painful silences and in my moments of sadness, in the aches that my body spoke and expressed – you, with your listening, your patience and your tolerance, gently asked and inquired whether you could help. I sensed and felt how much you were with me during the time that we had, and beyond. You have the power to reach a person’s soul, and every time I discovered this anew – how you were able to see my inner “me” while I could not see it, while I told you about all of my life’s sad experiences and about long periods of suffering.
You listened, and tears flowed from your eyes while I could no longer cry. You cried for me and I felt you, how you were a partner in my pain, and if there is anyone in this world who wanted, at that moment, to take the moments of suffering and pain from me, it was you – you who know how to listen, patiently. With every fiber of your being you where there for me, by my side, even when our meeting was at an end.
There were other meetings, too – different ones, with much joy and just a little sadness. Always, you had the ability to show me a different perspective on things.
You shared your reality with me, too, and then I learned that those who come to give also have a life story – no less painful, and that if we so choose, it is possible to change a way of life and a way of thinking, and to arrive at different places, places that are better for ourselves.
What we invite upon ourselves, at different points in life, does indeed come knocking on our door and on our head; it comes to tell us something. If you were once hurt, then you have the power to get up and to live anew. You have powers – get up and discover them. If you were hurt again, this time more severely – you fall, and all of your inner strength falls with you. You become submerged in a world that is different from what you know; you feel the pain in your bones. You live on pills so that you can maintain some sort of sanity, which actually isn’t real sanity. Until the next hurt – this time from someone who, as I see it, is witness to my writing these words; the man who manages to continue causing such hurt that I understand now, better than ever before, why I made the choice of getting up and saying, “No more”. No more will a person like this be part of my life. I prefer death to pain from a person who, at that time of our lives, was my entire world, and who hurt me and left me with scars so painful that to this day, when I write to you, it’s hard for me to breathe.
But – as you have come to know me – I continue.
I continue to live life as it should be, and I can tell you that for some time I’ve been filled with the joy of tiring, calming activity. I chose to leave the kindergartens and to find work close to home. I’m currently caring for 5-month old twins, all week, and I’m finding enormous satisfaction in raising two amazing, beautiful girls. They fill my days and give me much joy with their smiles, and even with their tears.
As to my own daughter, I bought her a piano, and she’s learning at home. She’s showing amazing, surprising progress; she has a very good teacher. There’s excellent chemistry between them, and it’s wonderful to see my Tamar happy.
I’ll write to you again after I’ve learned to stop waiting for Mondays (home visit days). I sometimes feel that I’m still experiencing separation, that I’m not yet ready to let go, and that’s why on Mondays, while I’m waiting, I run your visits through my mind; I sit in the same chair and converse with myself until I get tired and part from the time and from Monday, and continue with the day after.”
14.12.07
“For me, work brings some balance into a life that I get sucked into. When evening comes I’m still looking for quiet – not just the quiet that’s inside my house, but quiet in my body and soul. Sometimes I can touch it, sometimes not, but I’m learning that there are other ways of feeling that quiet, which also brings with it the calm and tranquility that I seek with all of my being. Sometimes I find in a song that I hear on the radio, or in reading the Song of Songs, or a chapter of Psalms, or a book to which I am drawn once again – that quiet that calms every part of me.
So you can understand from my letters that I continue on my way with the hope that one day I’ll get to a place where I’ll feel that there’s nothing to fear, because whatever God prepares for us – and we for ourselves – ends up happening, one way or another.
Dina, I’m writing to you and telling you what’s happening with me, and I always think about what’s happening with you – how you’re feeling and where the gift has moved on to, and who you’re visiting every week and causing to feel that which you caused me to feel during every one of our meetings.
So, until the next letter, I’ll say goodnight – and, actually, good morning.”
12.04.08
“This evening, after I returned from going out with Tamar, I sat down to watch a show by Boaz Sharabi on Channel 2. The show was recorded at the amphitheater in Caesaria, and in between the songs and the words there were moments when I felt so alone, and there were moments when I could hum along, and moments that moved me to tears and brought up memories of the past. And there was a sharp stab to the heart, and at that moment there was no-one by me with whom I could share my feelings. This is something that’s difficult for me, each time over again, because life is going by and there are many stations where I feel that I already need more. I hear the songs that say, “You still love me”, “Giving your soul and your heart”, “I’m alright; no-one dies of love anymore” that flow through my veins together with the tunes and reach the deepest places. It’s not easy to have these experiences of aloneness, but that’s life and I go on living, and with all of that – you’re always with me.
See, I’m writing to you and telling you about what’s happening with me, and I always stop for a moment to think what you would say about my pain, my feelings…
Pesach has already passed, and Purim before that. It was a difficult time. All of the explosions going off took me back to the difficult times, and I had to take pills so that I could calm down and be more balanced, and at least sleep a few more hours, to be able to get up for another day of work.
Yours, Ora.”
20.04.08
The volunteer who undertook the house visits speaks:
The caller made contact after having suffered a very serious injury, when a bus exploded next to her in Jerusalem. She and her infant daughter were injured. She underwent a series of operations, was rehabilitated, and went back to work.
A year later, there was another terrorist attack in the same area. This time she was not injured, but the original trauma returned. As a result, her situation deteriorated: she stopped working, separated from her husband, shut herself in her home, couldn’t sleep, suffered pains throughout her body, images kept coming back and replaying themselves in her head, severe depression.
After several sessions via the NATAL telephone hotline, she was offered some home visits, with a view to alleviating her loneliness and helping her to get back to living.
I visited her for two years, once a week, for two hours each time. At first the visits were at her home; afterwards we would go out together to a park or for a walk.
I found a woman who is beautiful, intelligent, with broad horizons, but extinguished, huddled within herself, devoid of energy. The only spark of light in her life was her daughter.
In our meetings and our conversations, I felt great empathy towards her. I brought listening and containment for what she was and for the place where she was at this point in her life. I lit up corners and angles of thinking that she had not previously been capable of seeing, and slowly the outside world opened up to her and her inner world began to emerge. She connected with her strengths, refused to despair at every setback, her eyes started to smile again, and she was able to laugh. She went back to work, went out to attend lectures, began volunteering at her daughter’s school, and forged new social ties.
Light came back into her life – slowly and intermittently.
An example of the change and development that she underwent is evident in her own words: “… And the truth is that this time I allowed myself (to be submerged), because I know that I’ve suffered setbacks before, and from there I rose up high…”.