These Lights We Kindle, (revised for submission)
By Alan D. Busch
“Please God. No!” I quietly pled, my body trembling.
“Not again,” I girded myself for I knew, with a parent’s intuition,
that something bad had befallen one of my children.
“Yes,” I acknowledged reluctantly. “This is Mr. Busch.”
“Mr. Busch, my name is Ann,” she began calmly. “I have
just left your daughter Kimberly.”
“Kimberly!” I panicked. “Is she alright? Is she hurt?
Tell me where she is!”
"Mr. Busch,” Ann continued as calmly as she had begun.
“We’re about an hour south of Chicago at mile marker 80.
Kimberly was involved in an accident, but she isn't hurt, not a scratch,” she assured me.
“I’ve already left the scene,” Ann further explained, “but when I saw it happen,
I pulled over to offer whatever assistance I could. That’s when I met Kimmy.
I promised her I’d call you as soon as the police and rescue arrived.”
“Listen Ann,” I interrupted her as politely as I could. “Thank you from
the bottom of my heart. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate what you did.”
I hung up but realized that, in my haste, I had neglected to ask Ann for her last name and
phone number.
“Jan,” I called Kimmy’s mother. “Sorry to call you at work but, but …”
“But what,” she asked haltingly. I swallowed hard.
“Kimmy was in an accident.”
“Kimmy, my baby!” she cried out.
“But she’s fine, not a scratch,” I hastened to add.
“What, what happened?”
“Listen ‘Hon’,” I interrupted her with an old term of endearment.
“I’m leaving to get Kimmy right now. She’ll tell you later.”
I gathered my things and ran out.
I had driven the route often on my way to visit family in St. Louis. This portion of the trip,
however, took only about ninety minutes, but it afforded me enough time to revisit the
memory of the day Kimmy was born. And, as I had done on the occasion of my first-born
son’s birth, I dressed in surgical garb and, with the assistance of the nurses, scrubbed
along side of the obstetrical team. My job, as proud dad, was to count fingers and toes. I
am thankful to The One Above for having given ten of each to all three of my children. For
Kimmy, however, there was an additional gift. “Ma,” I called my mother. “It’s a girl. Yes Ma,
ten of each, but with red hair and,” I continued excitedly, “the most magnificently shaped
and graceful fingers you could ever imagine.” I’ve marveled at them ever since that day.
I exited at mile marker 80 and turned into a gravel lot about a half mile off the interstate.
She stood in front of the service station that had towed her car. Appearing exhausted and
emotionally fragile, I couldn’t help but see the little girl whose red hair I used to put up in
a ponytail like that of Pebbles on The Flintstones.
“Daddy, I … I’m so sor …” Kimmy trembled as I held her, her head on my shoulder,
sobbing.
“Shh, shayneh madele.”
“Dad, can we go home?”
“Yes Sweety,” I assured her, “in a few minutes. I’ll meet you by your car. Don’t forget your
bags.”
I walked over to the garage’s office.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bill, the paunchy garage owner, admitted.
“And I’ve seen quite a few of these in my time,” he added, scratching his head.
We settled up.
Kimmy and I stared incredulously at what had been her candy apple red, white
convertible top Toyota Solara. The collision crumpled the front end within several inches
of the dashboard, as though it were the bellows of an accordion. The driver’s side door,
to my amazement, opened cleanly. I got in, took hold of the steering wheel and slumped
down in the seat. The deflated air bag lay crumpled up on the passenger side. “My baby
girl almost died here,” I muttered, straining to avoid an emotional breakdown in front of
my daughter. I opened the door.
“Kimmy,” I invited her. “Come sit by me.” I slid over. “I need a few minutes,” I softly pled.
She nodded understandingly.
Then they came back to me … the eight words I’d never forget:
“Mr. Busch, I suggest you come down immediately."
Dr. Ibrahim Yosef, on call that morning in the ER of Cook County Hospital, called me at
10 o’clock in the morning. My first-born son Ben had been transported in by Chicago Fire
paramedics only minutes before.
“Mr. Busch? Are you the father of Benjamin Busch?”
“Yes, Sir,” my voice quivered.
“I’m sorry but Ben has suffered massive internal injuries from a traffic accident,” he
explained. It was then he “suggested” I come down immediately. I sped away to the
hospital in a state of focused desperation. I knew how this day would end.
Two hours later, my father and I witnessed our twenty-two year old son and grandson die
on the emergency room operating table.
“Dad, wake up,” Kimmy urged, shaking my shoulder. “It’s time to go home.”
The near loss of my second child led me to revisit the death of my first. It would not
surprise me if Kimmy, who had been a loving sister to Ben, had gone there too. We got
out of the car. I kissed her on the forehead. “Okay, Sweety. I’m ready to go home now.”
I thank The Almighty for “His miracles that are with us every day” and for ending this day
differently than He had the other when, several years before, I began the day with three
children but ended up with two.
We didn’t talk much. Kimmy was skittish, gasping every time I braked or switched
lanes.
“You okay?”
“Yes Dad. Just beat.” An hour and a half later, I dropped Kimmy off at her mom’s house.
My heart sank. I wanted to spend more time with her, but I had to keep the promise I had
made to her mother.
“We’ll get together later,” I reassured myself. As I pulled out of the driveway, I saw the
chanukiah Kimmy’s mom had placed in the front window. The shamash and the first
candle shone brightly. Chanukah, The Festival of Lights, is the season of miracles some
old, others new and for showering chocolate coins upon the heads of children.
“My God,” I chastised myself. “Tonight’s the first night of Chanukah.” I felt bad at first, but
quickly realized The One Above had enabled Kimmy and me to live the eternal message
of Chanukah: “nes gadol haya sham”-a great miracle happened there.
Later that week, Kimmy joined me and Zac, her younger brother, for dinner Friday night.
As it happened, it was the one “Erev Shabbat” of the year when the candles of both
Chanukah and Shabbat are lit. We gathered around the table.
“Sweetheart,” my voice cracked as I began a short speech.
“Yes Dad,” she responded laughingly while drying a few tears.
“This Shabbat is extra special.” I lifted the Kiddush cup. "I am so thankful to have you by
my side.” My right hand trembled slightly. I let a moment pass. The candles shone more
brightly at that instant, illuminating the serpentine path of a single drop of wine running
down my hand. Reflecting on how that day might otherwise have ended, I chanted the
blessing over the wine and thanked The One Above for her life.
It was a wonderfully simple moment when I rejoiced in my Chanukah miracle whose
fingers I held tightly in the palm of my hand, the best gift any dad could ever hope to
receive.
Alan D. Busch
11/29/09
I Grieve For Ben at My Side
I devotedly await the impossible.
If only Ben could come crashing through my kitchen door on
his skateboard again, I’d be able to return to my life the
way it once was. Mind you, it was not always pleasant.
I’ve known the agonizing experience of wrestling my 220 lb.
adult son in the throes of diabetic hypoglycemia and the
torment of bear-hugging him while a grand mal epileptic
seizure ran its course. And I can assure you that combating
the devastating impact of not one but two chronic diseases
in my child’s life is, like his death, an event for which
no parent can adequately prepare himself. My family
experienced both.
The days and years of Ben’s life were few and troubled.
When ten and a half years old, he begrudgingly surrendered
his childhood to the pernicious demands of juvenile diabetes.
Gone were the yesterdays and tomorrows of his childhood.
His hopefulness for a normal future, his expectations of
success and for long life became bleak. Ben acceded to the
basic requirements of diabetic care but insisted he live his
life
were his
the
I‘ve never loved anyone more, but Ben and I clashed often. I
feared his diabetes. He largely ignored it. Believe me when I
tell you we did not welcome the additional burden of epilepsy
with which Ben was diagnosed just after his eighteenth
birthday.
Parental bereavement takes no days off. This year I will
commemorate the three thousand, two hundred and eighty-
fifth day I have been grieving for Ben. The 24th of Cheshvan,
5761, corresponding to November 22, 2000, the day before
Thanksgiving, was the last day I spoke to him, touched him
and marveled at his gift for living life.
On the eve of Ben’s yahrzeit, I will light a ner neshuma, a
memorial candle, this year for the ninth time, a practice
I’ve done since Ben’s life ended after twenty-two and a
half years. But as important as I recognize this “light of the
soul” to be for Ben’s aliyah, it does nothing to soothe the pain
of my loss. Maybe it’s unreasonable of me to expect that it
should. There is, after all, no balm for parental grief.
Its pain worsens as the gulf that separates us widens. I
return
he was
young
as
I
darkness that shrouds the life of a bereaved parent.
Though of my past, I grieve for Ben at my side one day at a
time, every day of the week, month and year. He must
remain an eternal zikaron, an everlasting remembrance.
That is, I suspect, the way of most, perhaps of all bereaved
parents. Ask any one of us how it works.
“I know what you mean," noted a friend of mine, a fellow
bereaved parent. "It's been 28 years for me. I can't imagine
the days!! Yet I still grieve and always will. I don't want a day
to come when I can't remember her face or things she said
and did.”
Contrary to the well-intentioned but wayward counsel of
some consolers, I don't wish to put Ben’s death behind me. I
hold it in front of my eyes. It neither blinds nor causes me to
stumble. Even though I’ve never put much stock in the old
platitude that “time heals all wounds”, I do worry, however,
that someday Ben’s death will feel more like history than
yesterday’s tragedy. So, I refuse to surrender his memory to
the amnesia of time. Though I believe I did the best I could
for him, I’ve considered the possibility that guilt might be
hiding behind my grief, that somehow I may have failed Ben
in his life.
I think a lot about that. I am, however,
My grief, like that of others who have
Bens, remains my steadfast
So, as I approach the three thousand, two hundred and
eighty-
enough to see me searching the starry skies for your
passing shadow.
Alan D. Busch
