Not because she didn’t want to, but because she was advised by a specific askan not to tell her family

Dear Siblings,

This is super awkward for me, but I don’t want to chas v’shalom hold resentments, and I really need to get this off my chest, so I decided to share by way of this letter. I hope you take it in the right way.

Baruch Hashem, after a number of years, I finally have good news to share. Unfortunately, this has come along with a number of health issues that have caused my condition to be noticeable much earlier than I would have chosen to announce it. It also puts me in a precarious medical situation, and we were told by someone close to us that all should go well in the zechus that we don’t talk about it, as there is brachah in that which is hidden. We were even instructed not to share the news with our parents, something that is gut-wrenching.

We stuck it out. We didn’t share our news, even when we were falling apart and really could have used the support. Yes, we were eventually given the go-ahead to inform our parents of our situation, but we were reminded not to speak about it at all to anyone else — when people see, they see.

You can imagine that after this amount of time waiting for such news, of course we wanted to share our good fortune with you! And yet we understand that if we want to have what to share, our mandate is to keep silent. It was hard. But we’ve done so.

But then we discovered that after all our efforts to keep quiet, our siblings are talking about us behind our backs, even approaching our parents and putting them into a corner, forcing them to either lie or share what we instructed them not to.

Didn’t it ever occur to you that there’s a reason we’re not sharing? That it isn’t about you; it isn’t because we don’t consider you important, but because there’s something more complex going on?

No, it doesn’t look like it has. And your talking is ruining our chance at something that really, really hasn’t come easily to us. I wish that you would just hold your tongue, keep your suspicions to yourself, or say a kapitel Tehillim that all should go smoothly.

We did it for you. We never pushed to be in the know, never shared your news when you were expecting.

Can’t you give us that respect, too?

Working to forgive,

Your Sibling

Dear Askan,

MY husband received the call on a sunny Monday afternoon, just as we were finishing lunch. “Your sister just had an operation, and they couldn’t do anything, so they closed her up!”

Those were words flung us across time and space, and we didn’t know what had just hit us.

As the story emerged, it seemed my sister-in-law had been sick a few years back, but aside from one close family member — and my sister-in-law’s entire shul — knowing about it, the entire family, including her children, were kept in the dark.

The weekend of the call we received, she hadn’t been feeling well, and after visiting the doctor, he insisted that my sister-in-law rush to the hospital. There it was determined that she needed immediate surgery. But when they began the surgery, they found Stage 4 cancer, so they “closed her up.”

My husband has been a paramedic for many years, with Hatzolah as well as within the 911 system. He gets calls on a daily basis asking him for medical advice, information on doctors, intricacies of different hospitals, and any other information that can be helpful — and lifesaving — to a person in a medical crisis.

But one person never called him. His sister. Not, because she didn’t want to, but because she was advised by a specific askan not to tell her family. I’m sure the person who advised her was well-intentioned, but he stole the opportunity she had to get not only medical advice and upgraded treatment, but family support. Emotional support. Physical support. Mental support.

All that was taken away from her because one person convinced her not to tell her family, the family who would have gone to the ends of the earth to help her in any which way.

Once he knew, my husband gave her his all. He suggested she change doctors and got her into the best hospital with the best medical care. He kept asking for updates and meetings with the doctors, trying his best to save his sister’s life.

Unfortunately, this story doesn’t end happily. My sister-in-law passed away a month later.

We’re left with the “if onlys.”

If only she had told her family.

And if not the whole extended family, if only she had told her parents, children, and sisters and brothers, who could have been there to support her.

And if not her parents, if only her sisters and brothers, who could have helped with the household, finances, and provided so much support.

And if not all of her sisters and brothers, if only her brother, the medically connected paramedic, who could have helped her to get the best treatment possible in the early stages.

The one thing we have all learned from this, aside from what a special person my sister-in-law was, is that keeping secrets doesn’t help, it only hurts. For most of us, family is there to help out, to provide support. Why deprive a sick person of that?

I’m haunted by the line my father-in-law says every time my sister-in-law is mentioned: “Why didn’t she tell us? Why didn’t she tell us?”

Sincerely,

A Grieving Sister-in-Law

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 838)