At 7 p.m. sharp, Gaby arrived.

“Hi, I’m Gaby,” he said with a smile that filled his entire face. My tongue was temporarily incapacitated. All I could do was smile back.

Gaby took me to the St. Regis Hotel, and we sat in the lounge. Once my tongue began to work again, I found myself talking nonstop. He talked plenty as well, and we seamlessly went from topic to topic.

I learned that Gaby had come to Miami from Argentina at 14. A few years later, his parents became interested in Yiddishkeit and slowly started taking on mitzvos, eventually becoming frum. He’d learned in a yeshivah in Bnei Brak, and then in New York. Afterward, he moved back home, joining his father’s business and becoming very close to Rabbi Koskas.

Gaby spoke about his passion for learning. He attended Rabbi Koskas’s shiurim and had learning sedorim both before and after work.

I had a growing sensation that this was the man I wanted to spend my life with. It felt so right. I appreciated his depth, passion, and commitment to Yiddishkeit. He was engaging and had a sense of humor. (It didn’t hurt that he was good-looking, too.)

Neither of us noticed how late it was until it was close to midnight. Gaby dropped me off soon after, and I ran into the Koskases’ home, my feet barely touching the ground. Everyone was up, waiting. One look at my face, and Rabbi Koskas beamed and said, “See? I told you he’s a diamond!”

I called my parents and breathlessly gave them a blow-by-blow account.

“Okay, Miriam,” my mother said. I could hear her smiling through the phone. “It sounds like it went really well. We’re going to look into this some more, and we’ll discuss it when you get back.”

I went to bed that night floating on a cloud, my thoughts spinning wildly. I already couldn’t wait to see Gaby again.

ITwas my father who told me. He called me an hour before my flight back to Mexico.

“The shidduch is off,” he said.

My heart stopped.

“What? Why? What happened?”

“We found out that this Feldman boy doesn’t have American citizenship. He doesn’t even have permanent residency.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

My father explained that if Gaby didn’t have permanent residency, it meant he would be unable to return to the US if he left the country; he couldn’t come to Mexico to date me there. Were we to get married, I also wouldn’t be given legal status to live in America. Although he’d applied for a green card, there was no telling if or when he would receive it. It could take years.

“But how can we stop a shidduch for no good reason? I really liked him. How can you do this to me?” My voice cracked.

“Miriam,” my father said sternly. “Listen to me. Your mother and I know what’s best for you. This is the first boy you met, so of course you like him. But you can’t know much from a first date. It doesn’t make sense to continue. This shidduch isn’t suitable for us.”

By now I was sobbing.

“I’m really sorry,” my father said more gently. “When you come back, we’ll contact shadchanim, and you’ll meet other, local boys, and you’ll forget about this boy.”

I only cried harder. I didn’t want to forget about Gaby. I didn’t want to meet other boys. I couldn’t believe my dream could be snatched from my grasp before it had a chance to materialize.

This time, even Rabbi Koskas couldn’t convince my father to let the shidduch continue.

After I returned home, my parents gave me a few weeks to recover from the disappointment before bringing up the topic of shidduchim again. There was a suitable suggestion, and they wanted me to meet with a young man. A local. Though I was totally uninterested, I agreed to go out.

The date was awkward from the first minute. We had nothing in common other than that we were both Mexican. I could hardly wait for the date to end.

That evening I sat with my parents as they tried to understand why I didn’t want to continue with the shidduch.

“He’s nothing like Gaby,” I said.

“Again Gaby?” my father said in exasperation. “Forget about Gaby. Gaby isn’t for you! We’re in the middle of another shidduch, you need to focus on this one. You never gave him a fair chance!”

Reluctantly, I agreed to a second date, and then a third. Each time I came home in a bad mood. After the third date, I refused to continue. The young man didn’t hold a candle to Gaby, and I couldn’t connect with him at all. I was relieved when the shidduch ended, but my parents were very disappointed. They felt I was making a big mistake.

“Listen, Miriam, my father said, “Sometimes your mind plays tricks on you, and you think something was there when in fact there was nothing. Then you go out again and you wonder what you saw the first time. When you went out with Gaby, you were in vacation mode. Everything is more exciting when you’re on vacation.”

The more they tried to talk “sense” into me, the more frustrated I felt. They thought I was being immature and unreasonable. I felt wronged and misunderstood.

But as time passed, my father’s words had an impact, and I started to doubt my feelings. Perhaps I really had imagined the connection I felt? Maybe I’d blown the whole thing up in my mind and it hadn’t really been more than a young girl’s naive fantasies?

“Could I have just one more date with Gaby? Just to see if it was really something? I feel like I need closure, to put this behind me.”

“No! That’s out of the question. You need to get over him. I regret that I gave you permission to meet him in the first place.”

“What if he gets his green card?” I asked.

“Then we’ll discuss it again. But that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.”

Miserably, I accepted this. Goodbye, Gaby. This is the end….

The months passed slowly. I kept busy working as a preschool morah. Occasionally, another shidduch would be suggested, but it never went anywhere. Life dragged.

Then one day in late July 2016, my father called me into his study. His expression was inscrutable, but I could sense he had something important to tell me.

“Miriam,” my father said. “We have an exciting shidduch for you. How would you like to go to Miami to meet a boy named Gaby Feldman?”

I stared at him. What was he saying? Was this a joke?

My father started laughing. “Gaby got approval for US residency.”

Before I had a chance to process, he continued, “He still can’t travel because he didn’t get his actual green card, and it could take a couple of months until it arrives. But now that we know it’s on the way, we’re okay with you continuing the shidduch. You’ll need to travel to Miami to meet him again.”

Two days later I was on a plane.

For almost a full year, I’d been fantasizing about going out with Gaby again. But now I was suddenly very scared. What if it had all been a mistake? What if the reality wasn’t as I remembered it? After all I’d been through fighting with my parents, what if the shidduch didn’t work out?

Hashem, I pleaded. Please give me clarity. Please don’t let my judgment be clouded by superficial factors or preconceived expectations. If it turns out to have been a big mistake, please give me the strength to be honest with myself and my parents, and to handle the disappointment.

And then finally, Gaby was standing there. He was exactly as I remembered him, with his winning smile and dancing eyes. All the anxiety escaped me, and I realized with relief that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

By the end of the night, I felt certain that Gaby and I would be husband and wife. I stayed in Miami for ten days, meeting Gaby often. Over the next few months, I traveled back and forth several more times as we continued to date. Gaby shared with me how painful it was for him that my parents put a stop to shidduch on account of his lack of permanent residency. He’d tried to move on and meet other girls, but never felt a connection to any of them. His story was eerily similar to mine.

Finally, in November, we celebrated our engagement. 

The wedding was set for right after Purim, in Miami.

The weeks passed in a whirlwind of shopping, going to gown fittings, booking airfare for all of us, and taking care of the myriad details that come with getting married overseas.

Four weeks before the big day, I was sitting at the table, addressing the last of the invitations. It was late afternoon, and I felt faint with fatigue. It had been a hectic day, running around town on different errands. I dragged myself up the stairs and collapsed into bed. As I did, I heard a crack and felt a little pain in my chest, but I was too exhausted to think much of it. When I woke up two hours later, I felt acute pain around my right rib.

Worried, I told my mother.

She wasn’t concerned. “It’s probably a result of the stress,” she said. “You need to take it easy and go to bed early. Hopefully, the pain will be gone after a good night’s sleep.”

I went back upstairs, but sleep eluded me, and the pain became excruciating. The night passed slowly, and I eventually dozed off close to sunrise. When I woke, to my relief the pain had mostly receded.

But I felt a little bump around my ribs. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been there previously. Now I started to panic.

“Calm down, Miriam,” my mother said. “It’s probably nothing. But maybe you broke a rib or something last night. We’ll call Dr. Perez as soon as the clinic opens.”

An hour later, I was sitting in Dr. Perez’s office. He poked and prodded me and finally ordered some tests. We received the results five minutes before Shabbos. Everything was normal.

But I was still in terrible pain. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. It hurt to move. I cried in agony all Shabbos, my parents watching helplessly.

We scheduled an appointment with another specialist, Dr. Pepe Smeke. He conducted an ultrasound and determined that everything looked normal.

But my mother wasn’t satisfied.

“Can you please repeat the ultrasound while Miriam is standing?” she asked. “The lump is only visible when she stands.”

The doctor stared at my mother above his glasses, his eyebrows raised.

“Madam , that is entirely unnecessary,” he declared. But my mother, usually so docile, insisted on a repeat ultrasound. The doctor finally complied, and, to his shock, the screen showed a very big, very obvious lump. Shaken, Dr. Smeke told us to go see an oncologist immediately. He referred us to a colleague he trusted.

When I called the oncologist’s office to schedule an appointment, the secretary calmly told me that the next available appointment was one month from then — three days after my wedding!

“But I must see the doctor immediately!” I cried. “It’s an emergency! I have this huge lump, I’m only twenty years old, and I’m getting married in three and a half weeks!”

There was silence on the other end. For a moment, I thought she’d hung up on me. Then she spoke quietly and said, “Okay, honey. Please be here tomorrow at four thirty.”

The next day, Wednesday, we were admitted into the room at four thirty-five. Dr. Jose Posada was tall and bald and very silent as he examined me. He pressed on the lump, and I screamed in pain. He remained cool and composed. “Let’s run some further tests,” he said finally, handing me a slip of paper with a referral.

I hadn’t yet spoken to Gaby about this; my parents had insisted we first find out what was going on. If it was nothing (which we still hoped it would be), there was no reason to scare him. Reluctantly, I agreed with them.

Friday morning at 7 a.m., I underwent testing. When they finished drawing my blood and taking the X-rays, we went back to Dr. Posada’s clinic. My mother and I didn’t speak the whole drive there.

We arrived at the office at nine-thirty. My father, who was a rebbi in a yeshivah, was unable to come, but he called in so he could listen when the doctor gave the diagnosis. The doctor took his time perusing the documents. I watched his face carefully. I could see it was bad. Very bad.

Dr. Posada finally cleared his throat. He addressed me. “It’s a tumor. A very large one. It’s growing very quickly in your ribs. We won’t know if it’s malignant until we examine it.”

Silence filled the room, broken only by my mother’s muffled sobs.

“Doctor.” My father’s voice came through the speakerphone. “If this was your child, what would you do?”

The doctor looked at my mother and me with pity. “If this were my daughter, I would have done surgery yesterday. We need to remove the tumor and do a biopsy. ASAP.”

We scheduled surgery for Monday morning. It was time to inform the Feldmans.

My father called Gaby’s father and apprised him of the situation. I can’t imagine what a difficult conversation that must have been for both fathers.

Gaby called me a little while later. I was petrified to talk to him. But when I heard his voice, I immediately felt better. He had tremendous emunah. His positivity spilled out and traveled through the airwaves, touching me in a very deep place.

“Miriam,” he said in a confident, strong voice. “This is just another bump in the road. We’ll overcome it. Remember, Hashem loves you. He’s with you every step of the way. Just stay strong and think positive thoughts. We need to have bitachon that everything is for the best. We’ll all daven that the surgery goes well. I look forward to meeting you on the other side of this hurdle.”

I got tremendous chizuk from my talk with Gaby and went into Shabbos with a sense of calm.

On Monday morning, my parents and grandmother accompanied me to the hospital. I was given a hospital gown, and the nurses instructed me to say goodbye to my parents. We all cried as we hugged goodbye, and then I was wheeled into surgery.

I don’t remember much of what happened, other than being given an injection that immediately put me under. Hours later, I awoke to the most unbearable pain. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to cry. I was left to recover, while Dr. Posada updated my parents.

He explained that the tumor was growing at an alarming rate. It had already taken over the whole rib, so they had to take out the entire rib as well as part of the pleura. They placed a machine in me that would suction excess fluids in my lungs due to the surgery.

And then came the news we’d feared the most.

The tumor was malignant.

I would have to undergo many rounds of chemotherapy and radiation to get rid of it.

It took a full week for me to recover from the surgery. I was extremely impatient with my slow recovery. I vented to my parents. “I just want to get out of the hospital. The chasunah is in two weeks and there’s still so much to do!”

My parents exchanged looks of alarm and confusion.

“Miriam,” my mother said gently. “I think you need to forget about the wedding for now… we need to deal with this cancer. We’re very sorry, but we think we’re calling it off.”

“What?” I cried. “No! You can’t do that! I’m getting married in two weeks, no matter what!”

“Miriam, please!” my father said. “We need to be realistic! In a few weeks, you’ll be starting chemo. You have no idea how hard that will be. We don’t think it makes sense for you to be far away in America, without your family and no one to support you.”

“My husband will be there for me.” I spoke clearly and forcefully. “I will not be alone.”

In my fragile state, my parents didn’t want to spell it out, but they were sure that once the Feldmans heard the diagnosis, they would not want to go forward with the wedding.

My parents tried to break this news into more palatable chunks. “Okay, Miriam, maybe we won’t call it off, but perhaps we should postpone it. Maybe a few months or so….”

I wouldn’t hear of it. I insisted on getting married, as scheduled.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “You think Gaby won’t want to marry me when he hears how sick I am. But I know he will! No matter what happens, he won’t break the shidduch.”

Soon we were all crying. My parents were anxious and scared. They were under tremendous pressure from family members who were urging them to cancel the wedding. But they also saw how much this meant to me. They worried that breaking off the match would break me and send me into a depression. Finally, they assured me that it didn’t matter what the whole world said. The decision would ultimately be up to me and Gaby. Only our decision would count.

I’ll let Gaby tell the rest of the story, since I’ve blocked out the details of this part.

Gaby

Two weeks before the wedding, we were told Miriam had Ewing’s sarcoma, an extremely rare and aggressive cancer that only affects one percent of young people.

My world crashed. I cried. I panicked. After waiting so long for this day, this was surreal. I went from denial to grief to anger and then started the cycle again.

The big question looming over all of us was: What about the wedding?

I never entertained the question of breaking it off. To me, it was crystal clear I would go ahead with the wedding. I was just concerned about the logistics.

But I faced much opposition.

My parents, the most wonderful, supportive parents in the world, felt we needed to break off the shidduch, or at least postpone the wedding. Every one of my friends, neighbors, as well as Miriam’s doctors, concurred.

I gave everyone the same answer: “The wedding is going forward as planned. Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”

Rabbi Koskas came to see me. He enveloped me in a tight hug, and I cried on his shoulder for a long time. When I was a bit composed, he said, very quietly, but very firmly, “Gaby, I’m so, so sorry to hear about Miriam. We need to have a conversation about the wedding. I know you were looking forward to this big day… we all were! But it might not make much sense for her to have to undergo chemo away from her family, and it would be a very hard way to begin married life.

“This is a very big decision, and one you cannot make alone. It’s important to consult with daas Torah. Let’s travel together to New York and discuss this with my rosh yeshivah, Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel.”

“Rabbi,” I said through my tears, “we consult with daas Torah when we’re unsure what to do. I don’t have a question. It’s clear to me that I have to marry Miriam. I promised I’d marry her, and I intend to keep my promise. When I asked her to marry me, it was no strings attached, not only as long as she was healthy.” I was crying so hard it was difficult to get the words out.

Rabbi Koskas was quiet for a few long minutes. Then he said in a choked voice, “Gaby, I’m so, so proud of you. I see how determined you are to go forward, and I applaud your courage and integrity. I support your decision one hundred percent, and my family and I will continue to support you and Miriam with all our capabilities, as long as this takes. We’ll fight this together!”

Many people questioned my sanity in going forward with a wedding, knowing full well that my kallah was seriously ill. I tuned them all out. My rabbi supported me, and once my parents heard that, they supported my decision as well. That’s all I needed.

The way I was raised and what I learned in my life taught me that you don’t back out or give up when things get difficult. Miriam and I had committed to get married. We would win this fight over her cancer together as a married couple.

Don’t think I was naive. It was made abundantly clear to me what we were in for.

When Miriam’s parents saw how determined we were, they gave their blessing as well. We got married on schedule, in a beautiful hall in Miami, surrounded by friends and family. Though Miriam had been receiving large doses of morphine to block the pain prior to the wedding, she didn’t need any pain medication on the day itself. She was flying high on adrenaline. She danced and rejoiced as every kallah does at her wedding.

As soon as sheva brachos were over, we started researching doctors, treatment plans, and hospitals. We met with a top oncologist in a hospital in Miami. He outlined his protocol: We were to start immediately with an aggressive dose of chemotherapy to kill the cancerous cells.

Miriam spoke up. “Doctor, will this chemo prevent me from having children?”

The doctor’s eyes bulged. “Mrs. Feldman, we’re trying to save your life! We have no time to waste. Do you understand that every day that passes increases the chance the cancer will spread?  If the cancer spreads, the survival rate for patients with Ewing sarcoma plummets to less than 30 percent!”

But Miriam was stubborn. “I don’t want to do the treatment if it will prevent me from having children. I want to have a family one day.”

The doctor nearly had a fit. But in the end, he gave us the number of another specialist. “Get in touch with his office. He specializes in preserving a woman’s fertility before undergoing chemo. But this needs to be done immediately. Time isn’t on your side!”

We contacted the fertility specialist, but his protocol was far more complicated and time-consuming than we’d anticipated. We were under tremendous time pressure. Deciding whether to go ahead with aggressive chemotherapy was too big a decision for us to make.

Rabbi Koskas swung into action. Through his contacts, a message was sent to Rav Chaim Kanievsky ztz”l, detailing the situation and asking what to do. His answer was clear: Right now, Miriam’s life was in imminent danger, and she was to proceed with the chemo without delay. As to our dilemma regarding having children one day, his response was, “I’ll daven for her.”

Rav Chaim also instructed us to get a brachah from Rav Aharon Leib Steinman ztz”l. Rav Steinman concurred with Rav Chaim’s psak and gave us a brachah that we merit to have children. He said he would also be mispallel for a speedy refuah sheleimah.

Armed with the psak and the brachos of the gedolei hador, Miriam went into chemo treatment without any further qualms.

In total, she endured 14 rounds of chemo. Since her parents still had young children at home, they weren’t able to be in Miami very often, but they tried to come as much as possible. Basically, the two of us, with the help of Rabbi Koskas, my family, and our wonderful community, navigated the confusing maze of doctors, treatments, and hospitals. We made many, many difficult decisions and did much research. Miriam endured numerous nights of agonizing pain, when she couldn’t sleep, when all she could do was cry.

Watching your wife suffering terribly and not knowing how to help her or how to relieve her pain was very difficult. At moments like those, you have only one desire — to make the pain go away, for her to stop suffering, for her to get well.

A few weeks after starting chemo, Miriam’s hair began to fall out. She was soon completely bald. That was another difficult challenge for her. Even though it seems minor, cosmetic, it was quite traumatic.

Her treatment required her to have two types of chemo, alternating every two weeks: One type required a hospital stay of three to five days and the other, five to seven days. These hospital stays didn’t include the times we rushed to the ER in the middle of the night because Miriam felt so unwell, or the time she developed an infection and was hospitalized for two weeks.

Shabbos in the hospital posed its own unique challenges. There were no phones, no music, no visitors to break up the day. The only thing we had was each other’s company. I came to appreciate those Shabbosos. Despite all that was going on, we were still in shanah rishonah. The hospital stays over Shabbos gave us an opportunity to be alone, to talk, play games together, get to know each other a little more. We had long conversations about emunah, Hashem, and how we envisioned our future home.

Rabbi Koskas told me when Miriam was about to start the chemo, “Cry all you want, but never in front of Miriam. Cry by yourself, cry with me, cry with your family and friends. To Miriam, you need to be a wall, strong and supportive.” That’s what I did throughout the whole process. I cried a lot, but never in front of my wife. In front of her, it was all laughter and positivity. It wasn’t easy, but it’s what Miriam needed.

On Chol Hamoed Succos, six months after our marriage, there was a surprise in the mail. My green card had arrived! We didn’t tell Miriam’s parents; we just booked tickets and flew to Mexico City to be with them for the second days of Yom Tov. Her parents were shocked but overjoyed to see us! At long last, I got to see Miriam’s hometown. She was so happy to show me around. We had to return to Miami right after Succos because she was scheduled for another round of chemo.

In December 2017, Miriam had her last round of chemo. After that hospital stay, her friends arranged for a bright pink limo to pick her up from the hospital. Miriam laughed and laughed as we escorted her to the limo.

After that, she still had to undergo radiation five days a week for six weeks. The radiation burned Miriam’s skin, lowered her blood counts, and made her feel terribly nauseous and dizzy. And then came a few more months of doctor’s visits, scans, and tests to make sure the cancer was well and truly gone.

But finally, shortly before Pesach of 2018, less than a year after we got married, Miriam was declared cancer-free!

Our shanah rishonah was quite different from most other couples. But what other couples attain in closeness with 20 years of hard work, we achieved that first year. We celebrated our first anniversary with joy and tremendous gratitude to Hashem, for bringing us to this point, and for holding our hands as we navigated the long, rocky road to the chuppah and beyond.

Epilogue

Miriam

WE settled into married life, that harrowing first year behind us. Several months later, we heard about a rabbi in Argentina who runs a program that assists couples with complex medical histories to have children. Based on my specific situation, the doctors had said it was impossible for me to conceive without medical intervention.

We made plans to travel to Argentina after Succos. But we never made it there. Shortly before Shavuos, we discovered I was expecting! The news was unbelievable. But as maaminim bnei maaminim, we knew nothing is impossible for Hashem.

The pregnancy was not without its complications. Routine scans showed a large hematoma. I was required to be on complete bed rest, and the doctors gave us a 50 percent chance of bringing this baby to term. Baruch Hashem, at four months, the danger passed, and the rest of my pregnancy was relatively smooth.

Finally, on January 17, 2020, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. We named our miracle baby Yitzchak Nissim.

Shortly afterward, the world was hit with Covid. Although for most people this was a very challenging time, for us this period of forced closeness was extremely precious. Our first years of marriage had been dominated by hospital visits, doctors, and medical drama. Finally, we were able to be a normal family, spending time together and building our relationship.

And the miracles in our lives continued. When Yitzchak Nissim was 11 months old, we discovered he would be joined by a sibling!

We were overjoyed by this news. After giving birth to our miracle child, we had assumed we could not expect any more. And now, another child was on the way. The profound words of Leah Imeinu, “Hapaam odeh es Hashem,” resonated deeply.

Then we hit another complication: During a prenatal routine visit, the doctors discovered multiple lung nodules. Though these can be fairly normal in pregnancy, it is concerning when found in a former cancer patient. The doctors worried they might be cancerous, but there was nothing they could do while I was expecting. The plan was to wait out the pregnancy and then do an exam immediately after. After the birth of our daughter, who we called Tzofia, we learned that miraculously, the nodules had disappeared.

With two beautiful, healthy children, we felt like we were the most blessed people on planet earth. Here we were, after the doctors had all predicted that children were not in the cards for us.

Our story doesn’t end here. Over the next three years, we had the incredible zechus to bring two more children into the world. Our son Dovid was born 18 months ago, and our daughter Shaina made her appearance in December 2024. We are now the parents of four children.

Miracles do happen. They are all around us. I am living testimony that while doctors can heal, they cannot determine whether or not we can have children. The key to childbirth belongs to Hashem alone, and only His Will prevails.

When I think back to those harrowing, painful, fearful months, when every day was a challenge, I am filled with incredible gratitude to Hashem for bestowing His many blessings upon us. Odeh Hashem b’chol leivav. These days my biggest challenge is chasing after my children as they turn my house upside down. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 926)