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These Lights We Kindle

By Alan D. Busch

“Mr. Busch?” a stranger’s voice inquired.
“Please God. No!” I silently 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.
“Your daughter is fine. Really! 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 reassured 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 what you’ve done means to me.”

I realized later I had hung up the phone without getting Ann’s 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, but she’s fine,” I hastened to add. “Not a scratch.”
Kimmy, my baby!” she cried out. “What, what happened?”
“Listen ‘Hon’,” I interrupted, addressing 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.

When I turned into the gravel lot about a half mile off the interstate, I saw Kimmy standing in front
of the service station that had towed her car. She appeared impatient, exhausted and emotionally
on the edge, but the child before my eyes was the same 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 …” she trembled as I held her, her head on my shoulder, sobbing.
“Shhh … sha shayneh madele.”
“Dad, can we just go home?” she asked, looking battered and worn out.
“Yes Sweety, in a few minutes. Get your bags out of the trunk. I’ll meet you over there.”
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, looking perplexed while scratching his
head. We settled up.

We stood there dumbfounded, staring at what had been Kimmy’s candy apple red,
white convertible top Toyota Solara. The collision crumpled the entire front end within several
inches of the dashboard, making it look like 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
driver’s seat. “My baby girl almost died here today,” I muttered to myself, desperately straining to
avoid breaking down in front of my daughter.
“Kimmy,” I opened the door. “Sit here by me,” I invited her, patting the edge of the seat. I moved
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, chief resident trauma surgeon, was on call that morning in the ER
of Cook County Hospital when he called me around 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.
“Ben has suffered massive internal injuries from a traffic accident,” he explained. It was then he said
them. I sped away from my office in compliance with Dr. Yosef’s “suggestion” in a state of focused
desperation, I knew, I just 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. I knew in my mind’s eye I would stare forever at Ben’s
unresponsive body.
“Dad, wake up,” Kimmy urged, shaking my shoulder. “It’s time to go home.” For my daughter, it was
a moment she wanted to leave behind and move on.

After all, who among us wants to replay the footage of his near violent death? And there I was,
trying my best to comprehend the enormity of nearly having lost a second child by using the only
meaningful point of reference I had, the death of Kimmy’s brother. But this was not about Ben
though I suppose my drifting away for a moment to make the connection is understandable if not
entirely justifiable. It was all about my daughter, that once enchanting little ballerina with the
amazingly long and slender fingers. She now sat next to me on the edge of the driver’s seat, a
grown up soon to be law school graduate whose fingers were still as lovely as they had been when
she danced upon toe shoe. I like to believe Kimmy knew where I had gone for several moments.
Knowing the kind of loving sister she had been to Ben, it would not surprise me at all if she had
gone there too. But today ended, and I thank The Almighty for this, differently than had the other
when I had begun the day with three children but came home with only two. We got up out of the
car. I planted a big “Daddy” kiss on her forehead. “Okay, Sweety. Now I’m ready to go home.”We didn’t talk much. Kimmy, understandably skittish, gasped 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 remain true to the promise I had made 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
happily. “My God,” I chastised myself. “Tonight’s the first night of Chanukah. At first I felt bad, but I
realized that even though the tumult of the day had made me unmindful, it hadn’t severed me from
its eternal message, encoded on the dreidel: “nes gadol haya sham”-a great miracle happened there.

Later that week, Kimmy joined me and Zac, her younger brother, for Shabbat Chanukah dinner. The
table was set, its candles aglow. It was the season of miracles old and new, a time for spinning
dreidels, eating potato latkes and showering chocolate coins upon the heads of children.
Chanukah, The Festival of Lights, was on display in the front window of every Jewish home.
We gathered around. “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 flickering candles shone more brightly at
that instant, illuminating the serpentine path of a single drop of wine running down my hand. I
chanted the blessing over the wine and thanked The One Above for her life. It was a wonderfully,
simple moment.

Reflecting on how that day might otherwise have ended, 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.

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http://www.juf.org/news/local.aspx?id=50878

Dear Readers and Friends

Clicking on the above link will take you to my latest published piece in the online edition of the Chicago Jewish United Federation News Magazine. As always read the comments from other readers and please leave one of your own.

I appreciate readership and support,

Alan Busch
alandbusch@aol.com
www.authorsden.com/alandbusch1
www.writersstockintrade.blogspot.com

Where authors and readers come together!

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 on his own terms, free to experience each day as if it

were his last. I’ve never known anyone more able to live in

the urgency of the present tense than Ben.

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 24^th 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 older each time. Ben remains twenty-two years old as

he was then and will always be. Instead of recalling his

young manhood, I tend now to think of him more and more

as the little boy he once was. He has missed so much of life.

I don’t think any number of yahrzeit candles can illumine the

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, certain of one thing.

My grief, like that of others who have loved and lost their own

Bens, remains my steadfast companion.

So, as I approach the three thousand, two hundred and

eighty-fifth day, I pray Ben that you dwell in the heavens high

enough to see me searching the starry skies for your

passing shadow.

Alan D. Busch

11/7/09

Where authors and readers come together!



I Grieve For Ben at My Side

I devotedly await the impossible. If Ben could only come crashing through the kitchen door on
his skateboard again, we’d be able to return our lives to the way they once were.

Mind you, it was not always pleasant.

I’ve known the experience of wrestling a 220 lb. man in the throes of diabetic hypoglycemia and bear-hugging him while a grand mal epileptic seizure ran its course. And I can assure you that combating the devastating impact of chronic disease on your child’s life is, like a child’s death, an event for which no parent can adequately prepare himself. Our family experienced both.

The days and years of Ben’s life were few and troubled. I think we did the best we could for Ben although there have been times when I’ve had serious doubts. Ben begrudgingly surrendered his childhood to the pernicious demands of juvenile diabetes when ten and a half years old. 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. He acceded to the basic requirements of
diabetic care but refused to live his life unless it were on his own terms.

Ben lived in the present tense better than anyone I’ve ever known, experiencing each day as if it were his last. I loved no one more than Ben, but we clashed often. I feared diabetes.
Ben largely ignored it. Believe me when I tell you we did not welcome the additional burden of epilepsy with which he 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 it is, the light of the ner neshuma does not soothe the pain of my loss. There is no
balm for parental grief.

Its pain worsens as the gulf that separates us widens. I return older each time. Ben remains twenty-two years old as he was then and will always be. Instead of recalling his young
manhood, I tend to think of him more and more as the little boy he once was. He has missed so much of life. I don’t think any number of yahrzeit candles can illumine the 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. Ben 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 them how it works.

A friend and fellow bereaved parent notes: “I know what you mean and 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 that someday Ben’s death will feel more like history than yesterday’s tragedy. I refuse to surrender his memory to the amnesia of time.

While still struggling to clarify the impact such profound grief has had on my life. I’ve considered the possibility that guilt hides behind my grief; the guilt I have felt at times for somehow having failed Ben in his life. I think about it a lot. I just don’t know, but of one thing I am certain. My grief, like that of others who have loved and lost their own Bens, remains my steadfast companion.

Alan D. Busch
11/04/09