I turned back to Mindel. Rabbi Emanuel could have never known that this child’s father was uninterested in his lichtige little girl. How could he know that the only contact she had with her father was when he was angry with her or her mother? He couldn’t have known how she lived in fear of her father’s footfalls as he came home — if he came home.

But Rabbi Emanuel saw a young sapling dying of thirst, and he brought her back to life. He showed her that she was worthy of attention and care.

The three-and-a-half years after that were not easy. Hard things only get harder when they aren’t resolved. Time marched on as open wounds festered and new wounds were formed.

WE were so excited to call Rabbi Emanuel again; I think we were the only customers who actually called him on time. Again, he asked if my husband’s tefillin needed checking and again, I had to mournfully decline.

Finally, the moment arrived. Rabbi Emanuel was back!

Mindel felt like a big girl, nine and a half now. She could barely contain herself when she saw Rabbi Emanuel and eagerly showed him the bag she’d prepared. She stood tall, quiet, and efficient at his side, sneaking in wide grins at me while he unscrewed the mezuzahs.

We were the happiest mother-daughter duo there ever was. Something about the sofer checking our mezuzahs made us feel at peace with the world, even in our turbulent home.

Once again, after they were done, Rabbi Emanuel asked, “Would you please teach me something you learned in school?” Bursting with energy, Mindel ran to her Chumash, and this sweet, unlikely chaburah had their second shiur.

Rabbi Emanuel was highly impressed with her insight and skill. When she left the room for a minute, he told me something that still burns inside me today. “She is very intelligent. She will have many questions. Never shut her down. Answer what you know and find out what you don’t.” I nodded in understanding, my new mission safely engraved on my heart.

Shortly after Mindel’s 12th birthday, I called Rabbi Emanuel.

Gently, he asked again, “Do your husband’s tefillin need to be checked?”

“No,” I said. “Thank You, Hashem, I am divorced!”

“Ah,” was the answer. “Thank You, Hashem.” I could hear him smiling through his beard.

He came; he did his thing. For Mindel, it was like a visit from her favorite zeidy. She kept up a running conversation as they traveled from room to room. I could tell he was having trouble concentrating on the overflowing stream of words while he was working, but he seemed to love it all the same.

I wonder how it must have been for him, watching her grow up in three-and-a-half-year spurts with no contact in between. He left such positive energy behind; just enough to tide us over until the next time.

The next time I called was different.

“Rabbi Emanuel, I’m remarried, baruch Hashem!”

“Wow,” he breathed. “Baruch Hashem!” I waited with bated breath for the question that followed. “Do your husband’s tefillin need checking, too?”

“No, thank you,” I said. “He took care of it.” I don’t think any wife has ever been prouder.

The Rabbi Emanuel who entered our new home moved more slowly and stood more stooped, but he was still the same Rabbi Emanuel.

Mindel was now a shticky high-schooler — who could believe it?! She greeted her old friend happily, showed off her Chumash notes with an easy smile, and promptly left to join her gaggle of friends.

She wasn’t dehydrated anymore, this blossoming sapling. Baruch Hashem, her stepfather was there for her. He drove her to school every morning — it was their special time together as they built each other’s entire world.

Rabbi Emanuel finished the job without his apprentice this time. Something echoed in this new stillness. Tefillos do get answered.

“Thank You, Hashem,” we said in unison as he lifted a hand in goodbye.

What we didn’t know was that Rabbi Emanuel’s precious once-upon-a-time apprentice was about to go through an ordeal. Over the next few years, she would struggle with terrible demons in her mental health and Yiddishkeit. Those mezuzahs would be the only light in the coming darkness, as we waited for the heavy clouds to pass.

AT 18, Mindel was doing much better; the mezuzahs were surely relieved.

“Rabbi Emanuel is coming today,” I told her.

“Oh!” she said. “I hope I get to see him. My schedule is packed!”

But it would not be a visit like the many before it.

Our dear, dear Rabbi Emanuel was suffering from early-onset dementia. A job that usually took him a half hour stretched into three. Though I thought he’d be jumping for joy at the idea of training in my toddler as his new little apprentice, he barely gave her a second glance.

Rabbi Emanuel simply could not focus, and my husband, who gently helped him, was drained by the time he left.

“Something is not right,” we worried.

A week went by, then two.

I called Rabbi Emanuel to follow up on our mezuzahs, but the conversations were incoherent. A month passed, then another. I dreaded the job, my fingers trembling as I dialed. Each conversation was worse than the one before.

“I can’t do it anymore,” I pleaded with my husband. “Please, you call him. I can’t watch this happen.”

After another month, I finally reached Rabbi Emanuel’s son. He was apologetic and very helpful, and our mezuzahs were back home within days.

But the relief at their return was tainted by the sharp pain. How does one get over a loss that has no closure, as it unfolds gradually before our eyes?

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 960)