Life Chronicles

Dear Mrs. Bluth,

It is 3:00 in the morning and I have no more tears left. I just need someone to listen to me because there’s no one I can share my pain with and my wife is going through her own private hell, we can’t even comfort each other. I have been able to pull off a calm and pleasant demeanor during the day, going to work, attending my shiur and supporting my confused children who cannot deal with the emotional upheaval that my family has gone through and the bleak and desolate future that it presents us with now and in the future. Our lives have changed drastically and shows no hope of any positive change for the better in the future. So I ask nothing more of you than to listen, and then dispose of this letter should you see fit to do so. Or if you have any words of hope, to please send them my way.

I am the father of one son and four daughters and my wife and I did everything for and with these children; sports, trips and every kosher entertainment available to us as we felt that exposing them to a worldly education and frum activities along with their parents, would give them a taste of all the amazing activities available to all other children without the worry of exposing them in an unhealthy way and making them feel they were missing something. And they thrived while learning how to ice skate, play hockey and basketball and bought tickets to show them how the professional sports are played. My son, being the eldest benefited most of all. His friends played sports and I often joined them. Life was good then, when the kids were young and loved having us along most of the time. And the years passed.

Somewhere around the age of fifteen or sixteen, my son seemed to make excuses for why he couldn’t join us on a trip or go to a game with the rest of us. My wife noticed this too but said that perhaps this was due to the fact that he was experiencing the many changes a young boy turning into a young man was want to go through, even though it was a bit early. Feeling somewhat relieved, I let it slide. Other things changed too. He and I used to have special talks reserved for just the two of us where I could answer all his manly questions. I noticed that those stopped and when I asked him if he had anything we could discuss as we hadn’t had a chat in a long while, he just gave me a lopsided smile, shook his head and walked off. His facial hair began to grow in, he graduated, and then he went off to learn in Israel. For two years he learned in a prestigious yeshiva, coming home for Pesach only and we hardly ever saw him before he went back for the z’man end. His homecoming served to solidify that the young boy had become a young man who was self-assured and self-sufficient . He went to collage and attended a shiur and was seldom home. My wife and I concluded that it was time for “the talk” and ask him about his thoughts of shidduchim, as he was of age to begin the parsha.

“Totty, that won’t be necessary” he said to us, “I already met my zivug and she is the one I choose to marry.” My wife and I sat stunned, not understanding what had just been said. I then asked him who this young lady was, how long he had known her and why he never told us about her. Shock turned into disbelief as he told us he met her through a friend when he was in high school and she brought him home to meet her parents who sort of adopted him since they didn’t have a son of their own. He was told not to tell us that he was friends with their daughter as it may cause discord between himself and us and that’s how it went on for the next four years to date. Now that we had broached the dating game, he said his girlfriend’s mother suggested that an engagement at this time was absolutely in order as he was already a part of their family and they loved him like a son. With this our son said that ‘Libby’ was the only girl he would marry and no one else! In shock, we tried to reason with him to at least go out on a date once or twice and then see if he felt he same way, but he soundly refused saying he was in love with Libby and her family and, like her mother said, they were made for each other!

A vort was set up almost a few days later after we hurriedly were introduced to Libby’s parents, a very strange and disturbing meeting it was, and Libby sat there like a stone drinking in every word her mother said, as if she was in a stupor, not even saying a word to us. They got engaged. We ran to Rabbonim for help and they all said we stood the chance of losing our son if we didn’t bend to the pressure of a quick wedding. They got married and every fear we ever had about this whole marriage came to the forefront. Libby proved to have mental issues and often behaved strangely when they came for a Shabbos or chag, which was, baruch Hashem, not often. We tried to tell our son that he had made a terrible mistake, that his mother-in-law had spotted him a as a perfect candidate to groom him as a husband for this misfit of a girl who would otherwise not catch a normal husband. But our son threatened us with not coming to visit if we kept saying these things. We did not want to lose our son, he was already lost to us by his own will. And this is where we are now.

There is so much darkness in our once happy, loving and united home, so much sadness and pain.

It is now 6:30 in the morning and I have to ready myself for Hashkoma minyan. My eyes are still red and swollen from weeping and if I ever wondered what death feels like, it feels like this!

My Dear Friend,

You pain is imprinted in every word of your letter, the lump in my throat is as painful as if I myself am undergoing your tragic experience. We put so much love, planning, care and supervision in raising our young, protecting their bodies and souls from the evils of the outside world and finally, when we have reached the end goal to walk them under the chuppah, when we should be able to reap the benefits of all that loving tutelage and see them build their own loving homes, we find the devil beat us to it!

We cannot watch our older children every waking moment of the day nor monitor their affiliations when they are not within watching range, but we hope at this juncture that all we and their teachers have taught them has taken root and formed a respectful, honorable and truthful foundation on which to build their adulthood. One that will withstand the devil and his henchmen in their attempt to spirit them away. Sometimes we fail.

Your son had the great misfortune of being brainwashed by Jezebel herself, so she could groom him from his tender teenage years when the boy was most impressionable, so she could prime him for marriage to her mentally stunted daughter at an acceptable moment and make an honest woman of her. Yes, you have in essence lost your son and when his eyes open to the truth somewhere in the not too distant future, he will realize this way too late to leave. Never give up hope, he may return some day, not as you remember him but as a broken and wasted individual who has met the truth way to late to salvage his joy of life, his young manhood.

Hashem doesn’t sleep. There is payback for the misery caused you at the hands of this cruel and calculating, narcissistic and controlling witch of a mother-in-law. This I know to be true. These next months and years will be hard with your missing him, find the wherewithal to stay focused on the daughters you have at home now, they too are suffering the loss of their brother and cannot grasp why. It would be beneficial for your family to speak to a family therapist and use the tools you are given to draw closer and get stronger from this blow, as you wait emotionally and mentally to welcome him back home when that day comes.