ON my first date, I knew it was a no-go after the first hour, though the guy took me out for five hours. “I’m doing half hour dates from now on,” I told the shadchan afterward. I wasn’t joking.

I met a few other guys, but with my heightened “sixth sense,” I knew quickly when it wasn’t it. I had none of the emotional and existential angst that people go through during the “parshah.” Once, watching a date walk up our front path from the upstairs window, my intuition kicked in and I said, “Nuh-uh, not for me,” and sent my younger sister down to meet him instead!

When I met my future husband, Dovid Widenbaum, for the first time, my radar went wild. I knew it was him. We spoke and connected. For our parents’ sake — both mine and Dovid’s, who were also not frum — we dragged it out two months until a l’chayim.

We had a nice place in Detroit at first, airy and spacious. But then we spent Pesach at friends in Monsey, New York. Spring breezes, frum Jews in Yom Tov regalia walking the streets… to me, Monsey felt like a storybook come alive. This was the way to live frum.

But it was an ideal; we had to be pragmatic. “We can’t just move,” Dovid said. “We have a life in Detroit, both of us have jobs….”

“Well, maybe we could do something about that,” our friends said. Within days, they’d found a job for Dovid.

We went home, packed up our stuff, and drove a truck through the night from Michigan to New York. We arrived in Monsey on our first anniversary. Dovid had made the arrangements for a place for us, but when I saw the small, dingy, fourth-floor apartment for the first time, I cried. The apartment, complete with roaches, screamed New York to me; a place I had never wanted to live. And yet, I wanted the Monsey frum life.

Eventually, it would become clear why we had to be right there.

We wanted to start a family, but we struggled with serious infertility. The waiting was hard and trying. Around us our friends were having baby after baby. Despite our hard time, I never begrudged anyone. I didn’t want what Hashem was giving to them; I wanted what He would give to us.

When I saw women who were expecting, I’d think, Miracles — these women are walking miracles.

After around seven years of marriage without children, we finally took an application from a fostering agency.

We filled out the reams of questions, but one question stared me mockingly in the face: Are you capable and competent all of the time? I couldn’t blithely check off “yes.” I suffered from some physical pain that impeded my ability to be capable all of the time. Our application would be invalidated, I thought, and I shredded the paper.

After that experience, Dovid and I went to Israel to pour out our hearts to Hashem. We went to kevarim, got brachos, and went to mekubalim.

At the home of one mekubal, when it was almost our turn to be seen, we were sent to the back of the line under the hot Israeli sun. I bristled, but when we were finally admitted, the mekubal said, “You know why I did that? Because I can see that you still need to work on your patience.”

This hit me directly. “And you know what else?” he asked.

I braced myself.

“You need to learn that there’s nothing to fear except Hashem.”

How did he know that I had so many fears? Roads and authorities and heights and falling….

Dovid wasn’t like that. He’d gone to high school in downtown Detroit, and skinny, yarmulke-clad Dovid had to learn to tough it out. Always a smart guy, he was able to convince a group of tough kids from the neighborhood to protect him from the others — that’s how he got through. In fact, the song Dovid had chosen for us to walk down the aisle to at our wedding was “Al Tira.”

The mekubal’s message was just for me.

His voice was still ringing in my ears the next day, when we visited Amuka. The bus began its laborious descent down to the kever site, and dimly, I registered that there were no guardrails. My initial thought was, we’re going to hurtle to our deaths. But I heard his voice, “There’s nothing to fear except Hashem,” and I steeled myself until the fear no longer gripped me.

It was a process, letting fear go, letting G-d deeper in; it’s something I work on to this day.

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ack home, we tried something different. We’d heard that there were many children in adoption agencies in Eastern Europe, and a certain lawyer promised to help us. We sent him a lump sum to begin the process with a Romanian child. It was a con. The lawyer ran off with our money.

Dovid reached out to the Gerrer Rebbe, of whom we asked all our sh’eilos. The Rebbe told us, “You should only adopt Jewish children.”

This was unexpected and unusual, as it was de rigueur for frum couples to adopt and convert non-Jewish children. There were very few Jewish children given up for adoption… and when they were, it was for severe reasons.

But we had a clear directive from the Rebbe. We approached the Jewish foster agency again and got another application, the same one I’d torn up years back.

We filled it out again. That same question I couldn’t answer was still there. But I wasn’t the same woman I was two years prior. The mekubal’s voice was in my heart now. “There’s nothing to fear.”

“Only Hashem,” I whispered as I left the answer blank. I knew that the empty response wouldn’t stop the right child from coming to us.

Soon, an offer came from the agency. “Would you take in two siblings, toddlers aged two and three from a difficult background with some serious needs?”

“Yes,” we said, utterly naive about what awaited us.

Hannah and Ze’ev showed up, emaciated and malnourished, starving for food and love.

While the social worker introduced us, we noticed that they were scratching their scalps. Clearly, they were crawling with lice. The social worker showed me how to check their heads. Soon, I, too, had a bad case of head lice.

These children were a brachah, and yet, as I was learning — is there a completely sweet brachah in This World? All things, even good things, are laced with pain and hardship.

In the cases of Hannah and Ze’ev, starkly so. They’d had a rough start in life with parents who had themselves been put into “care.” These two broken people got married and had children, frightfully unequipped for them. Ze’ev had suffered from oxygen deprivation at birth and his brain was affected. Hannah was a frightened child who would later be diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Dovid and I poured our love into these children. They were sweet and pure. Hannah had this childlike, emunahdig way about her. Ze’ev loved being active and roaming around. “I want to go a’walk,” he’d say, and we thought it was cute and would take him outdoors often. But then, one night, our neighbors came home late and discovered him outside. We found out that when we thought him asleep, he’d sneak out of his ground-floor window and “go a’walk.” Because of the kids’ conditions, we constantly took them to appointments and consultations as doctors attempted to treat them. The agency forced the kids to keep meeting their parents, which would send them into a tailspin and upend the calm in our home.

After two long years, the situation with the foster children felt increasingly beyond me. It was our brachah — but it was too hard, too much. One Succos night, after I put the children to sleep, I entered the succah where Dovid was learning and started to cry.

“I don’t think I can handle this anymore,” I sobbed, thinking of the difficult day of Yom Tov we’d just endured.

Dovid, too, started crying. Through his tears, he said, “But can we give back what Hashem gave us? Perela, He gives us koach with the new dawn. Can you give this one more dawn?”

One more dawn, I thought as I got into bed. Overwhelmed and depressed, feeling weak all over, I gave it to Hashem. I cried it out until I fell asleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I felt well again and deeply cleansed. I knew two things with absolute clarity. I would face this dawn with Hannah and Ze’ev. They were our children. That dawn turned into another and another: 18 years of sunrises and sunsets and the ups and downs of having these two beautiful, difficult brachos in our lives.

The second thing I knew was that we were going to do everything in our power to have biological children. To give it all the hishtadlus we could, no matter how hard. My husband, seeing my conviction, was fully on board.

The specialist we called didn’t have an appointment for another year. We took it.

When we finally met the grand doctor, he minced no words. “I wouldn’t give your case more than a fifty-fifty chance.”

His 50, our 50, Hashem’s 50… this doctor didn’t cow me.

“Let’s go ahead,” I said. “Whatever you put me through, I won’t complain.”

And I didn’t. Throughout the treatments, I had that familiar sense of “G-d on my shoulder,” seeing me through it. Through 5 a.m. wakeups and traffic snarls to the city, I kept up my spirits and saw it as an adventure. Plus, I’d treat myself to a pastry from the kosher bakery in Manhattan each time I did the drive myself.

That I stayed motivated and upbeat through almost five years of tests and treatments, disappointments and setbacks, was a miracle in itself.

And then, finally, came the day that the doctor told us that we were having not just a baby, but babies. I was so overcome that I sat there, tears streaming, laughing my head off like a modern-day reenactment of Sarah Imeinu’s experience.

Six months into the pregnancy, at a routine ultrasound appointment, the doctor said, “Mrs. Widenbaum, I’m afraid that you are in labor. It looks like the babies will be born tonight.”

“Nuh-uh,” I said, and he looked at me like I was nuts. “Not if I can help it. I’ll do whatever it takes so the babies are born on time.”

I couldn’t get up, so they put me in the cancer ward, where there was full-time care. Our two special kids went to friends, and our world condensed to that hospital room. Dovid worked overtime. He’d wake up at dawn, go daven and learn, check in on the kids, and then return to the hospital to sleep and do it again.

It was hard going, but we made it to the finish line. Our beautiful twin girls were born full-term, the picture of good health, all silky skin and rosebud lips. They were beauties to behold. They were ours.

Their kiddush was the simchah of the entire Monsey community. Our home was overrun with family, neighbors, and friends, all celebrating the miracle of our daughters with us.

Dovid had sent a list of names we’d chosen to the Gerrer Rebbe, who’d been involved in our sh’eilos throughout our journey to parenthood. With his blessing, our girls were named Basya and Tehila.

There was another sh’eilah we asked, one of dinei nefashos. Now that we had these biological children to raise, and with the constant hardships of dealing with Hannah and Ze’ev, was it time for us to send them on?

The Rebbe responded, “We don’t know which brachah comes from which brachah.”

We had our answer. They were all our children, all our brachos.

There was an age gap of around seven years between Hannah and Ze’ev (whom we referred to as the “big kids”) and the twins (whom we called the “little kids”). The “big kids” were thrilled with the addition of the “littles,” and for our girls, their two special older siblings were their normal. They accepted them in a simple, uncomplicated way; they’d play together and they loved them.

Three years later, after another treatment round, we welcomed our youngest daughter, Baila. She was everyone’s baby; our family felt complete.

AT

this point, our home full of babies and blessings, we needed serious income, and Dovid enrolled in the University of Bridgeport School of Chiropractic (UBSC) in Connecticut. He honed the innate abilities he already had. Like me, he had that sense of intuition, that ability to feel beyond the here and now.

He did the drive to Connecticut daily. When there was a test, he’d stay in the nearby Jewish community. Dovid never missed a minyan throughout that hectic time. “You don’t take a break from Yiddishkeit,” he’d say.

When he was finally qualified, he formed the Widenbaum Wellness Center in Airmont. He brought his big heart into his clinic, took on cases where others had given up, and helped many people. He’d always ask Hashem for help before seeing a patient, he wasn’t exacting about time or money, and he was so humble. Soon enough, he became the Monsey chiropractor. His advice and treatment plans weren’t easy to implement, but those who could follow them would truly be healed from their ailments.

His Wellness Center was an extension of Dovid’s generosity of spirit as a husband and father and baal chesed, and he was still that person even when he was struck with cancer a few years later.

When Dovid first fell ill, we were away for Yom Tov. On Hoshana Rabbah, his breathing became very labored. He didn’t want to miss Yom Tov, but I forced him to go to the hospital.

At the hospital, they X-rayed him. His lungs looked white, as if full of shards of glass.

“We have the X-ray. Can’t we go back home and have Yom Tov?” Dovid asked.

“Nuh-uh,” I said. It felt reminiscent of how I’d shaken my head, years earlier, when the lives of my unborn babies were at stake. “We’re not leaving.”

“I’m going to be admitted? I’m going to put on that hospital gown? You’ve got to be kidding.” He took out a sefer. He was struggling with his breathing, but still, he sat and learned.

The doctor came in. “Where’s the patient?”

From his seat, Dovid flashed him his legendary smile.

“I’m sorry, but you’re in respiratory failure,” the doctor said, indicating the X-ray.

I started to cry.

My husband kept smiling. “Why are you crying?” he said gently. “I’m going to get better.”

And he did. It was a hard time, filled with Dovid’s emunah, but when he did make a full recovery, he used his personal knowledge of the “machalah” and the debilitating side effects of treatment to help his own suffering patients.

For ten years, Dovid was well. He maintained his good health, and there was no hint of what was to come. He was the gentle backbone of our home, a loving husband and father, a chiropractor of heart and healing. Our girls were in middle school, then high school, busy with friends and learning. There were the ups and downs of the “big kids,” too — uncertainty and danger with Hannah’s schizophrenia, and Ze’ev, too, needed our help. All the while, we were still contending with their birth parents, whose involvement was difficult and detrimental.

Finally, after 18 years, Ze’ev, 20, and Hannah, 21, moved to a group home for adults with special needs in Monsey. This was the best setting for them, and they’re doing well there. They’re also part of our family forever. We visit them and we’re involved with them. They come back to us for Yom Tov, for simchahs. They’re ours. Our brachos.

One morning, over two years ago, Dovid awakened early, as usual. He went to shul, learned, and davened. And then he walked into his office and collapsed.

It was a heart attack.

Just like that, he returned his neshamah to Hashem.

During shivah, people came from all walks of life. Dovid had helped hundreds of people; in so many ways, he’d bettered their lives, and now he was gone.

To others in the community, he was an inspiration, a self-made Yid from the Midwest who became a chassid, who lived with Hashem with a huge heart. Our neighbors called him Tatty Widenbaum!

For me, it’s the unspeakable pain of losing my partner. I live with the reality that we need Mashiach. That this life is not whole. That we walk on the path He sets out for us. Somewhere inside me is that high schooler who wrote in her yearbook, Lead me on Your path, and I know that if He’s led me here, He’s with me. As ever, He’s tapping me on the shoulder.

The summer after Dovid’s passing was a blur, and then the Yamim Noraim were upon us. It was the Thursday before Succos, and I couldn’t face the kitchen or the stores. I got in the car and drove to Dovid’s kever. I sat in that shadowy place for hours and cried. Hashem. Let me feel that he’s still with me in some way….

Emotionally spent, I made my way home.

That evening there was a knock on the door. Someone handed me a prettily wrapped package.

“Who are you? Who’s this from?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the delivery person answered. “It’s for you.”

I knew that it must be a gift from one of the organizations that support almanos. I opened the package, feeling suddenly warm. Inside were two jewelry boxes with substantial gift certificates in them.

I read the short note. Hugs from Hashem. Take these certificates to one of three jewelry stores.

I didn’t want jewelry; I wanted my husband. I didn’t want to be gasping with loss. But I found myself entering the first store on that Friday morning. It was packed with shoppers: women considering the glinting displays; mirrors with hopeful, happy faces.

What was I doing there? I wasn’t like them. I wanted to melt back through the doors, but I was stopped by the proprietor.

I showed her the gift certificate. “I got this yesterday,” was all I could get out.

She blinked. “Yesterday. That’s funny. We sent these out for the organization three weeks ago. I have no idea why you only received it yesterday.”

I swallowed, thinking of my day in the beis hachayim.

“So now,” she asked brightly, “what do you want?”

“I don’t want anything,” I said, my voice tight with tears.

She took out a few bracelets and chose something dainty and gleaming, breathtakingly beautiful. “You deserve this.”

And as she was wrapping it up, I realized that Erev Yom Tov was when Dovid would give me my birthday gift. My birthday was on Shemini Atzeres, but he’d say that I might as well enjoy it for Yom Tov. I hadn’t been thinking about that. I was missing him, not the gifts. But here it was — not three weeks ago, but right on time. Yesterday I’d said, I want to feel him, and today I was in the store, my heart beat-beat-beating, feeling as though Dovid was right there with me.

A few months after Dovid’s passing, my sister took me to Israel for a breather. On the porch of the hotel, I looked out at the sea.

I thought of Dovid, because we both loved the water. The ocean, its vast and wild beauty — only Hashem could create that. To be at the ocean was to feel surrounded by Hashem.

I sat on the porch holding a book someone had given me, Say “Thank You” and See Miracles by Rabbi Shalom Arush. I blinked back tears. How could I thank Hashem for taking my husband away?

Beneath me, waves lapped and roared.

I thought, Thank You for 40 years of having him beside me.

Thank You that he didn’t suffer when he went.

Thank You for the ten years of health after his illness.

It wasn’t easy. The pain was still there, threatening to spill over like its own ocean. But in a deeper place, I knew that Hashem doesn’t want to hurt me, He wills our good, and from there I could find reasons to thank. It’s what Dovid did, too. After his passing, we found his Tehillim bookmarked to perek 100, Mizmor Lesodah.

Hadn’t I learned this from life? That struggle and joy were blended and fused together, that brachah could be like a salty wave… and that its roiling depths could glisten like a thousand suns?

When I got home, we commissioned a painting: Dovid in full chassidish finery, with a deep, blue ocean background. Radiant smile, arms raised. With the significance of the sea there, and the man himself, it’s everything I wanted to remember.

Recently, I went to Dovid’s kever. I sat for a bit and davened. When I turned the car back on, the music went on with the ignition. I had it set to a Spotify shuffle, and the song that blared from my speakers was “Al Tira,” the same version that had accompanied Dovid and me down the aisle. I hadn’t heard it in years, but here it was: slow, true notes, taking me back in time. It was Dovid’s message to me, what I’d heard from the mekubal all those decades ago.

Al tira, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid….

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 920)