Chapter 7: Mazel Run Out

I kept hold of a deep secret for many years!

Something so dark, so terrifyingly foreboding that, had one been told, the only adequate response would have been:

“God Forbid!”

I tried consciously to suppress it whenever it occurred to me, but its probability seemed less remote with every one of our visits to the emergency room! It seemed as if it were a certainty, a foreshadowing of an eventuality.

Somehow I knew Ben's mazel, our mazel would run out someday!

Does it seem horrible a parent should have such thoughts about his own child? Maybe so, but I freely admit it did often occur to me. Problem was I just did not know when it would happen! After all, one whose child lives with two chronic diseases and survives innumerable close calls might begin to anticipate the imminence of the last day.

As it happened, Ben did not die either from complications of diabetes or epilepsy, but was fatally struck by a truck while riding his motor scooter for a messenger service. So when his mazel, our mazel did run out-as odd as it may sound-I had already prepared myself emotionally for its inevitability.

Not so strangely, I felt certain Ben had lived a fuller life in fewer years than many would have done in more.

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Chapter 7a: Postscript to “Mazel Run Out”

Witnesses claim having seen the truck in the center lane when the driver, without signaling, executed an abrupt right turn into an alley crushing Ben in the process with his rear tires.

One witness testified having seen the driver exit his vehicle to see what had happened and then quickly returned to his cab, drove the truck further into the alley whereupon he turned his right turn signal on.

There is nothing in the reports to indicate he offered any aid or comfort to Ben.