The truth is out there

Our blog project group has once again changed by one member, but I'm still calling it Blog Project 3.0. The newest member is Darwin Shrugged, a friend of Froggie's. I recently got to know her better through "52 Stories" and I look forward to what she has to say on the upcoming topics.

This week, Darwin Shrugged chose the topic: Is it ever better to not know the truth? If so, give an example.

First, read what everyone else had to share on this topic:
Darwin Shrugged
Froggie
Moma Rock

When I first heard the word "truth," I thought of the tag line from The X-Files and decided to use that for my subject line. It really has nothing to do with what I'm about to say. First off, I need to say that the timing of this week's episode of How I Met Your Mother focused on Barney getting so drunk that he could only tell the truth. Robin and Ted kept asking him questions that they figured he would only answer during this small window of time. However, the more significant truths came from an argument between Marshall and Lily.

I wasn't sure what I'd write about on this topic, but then I saw a Facebook post from one of my friends:
Is it just because I have a kid now, or am I seeing more horrible things happening to children? I can't tell, but it makes me want to duct tape him to my body.... might get awkward on his first date.

This friend is the mother of a toddler who is around the age my older son was when I read about a baby who was shaken by his caregiver and ended up with multiple disabilities. (Unfortunately, I found out that the boy died a few years later.) That same week, a friend in my community lost her baby late in her pregnancy. Hearing about both situations turned me into a giant mess and I wanted to just hide my son in a protective cocoon. I feel like once I became a mother, I started hearing about every bad thing that could possibly happen to children. Even before my first son was born, I was faced with things that scared me in preparation for childbirth. Like when we visited a family whose son was severely disabled after being born with his cord wrapped around his neck. (So yeah, finding out he had hearing loss a few months later was really small potatoes in hindsight.)

In mid-December, 2012, a man walked into an elementary school and killed a lot of children. Exactly one year later, a boy (the same age as my older son) passed away after a long battle with leukemia. In case you're wondering which situation affected me more, it was the latter. Yes, it's awful that a lot of kids died at the hands of an extremely unhinged individual. In that case, they weren't prepared for it and their parents didn't get to say goodbye. There was an article about them in People magazine a few months later and it was very hard to read. In the latter situation, I had been introduced to the boy's mother's blog in November, finding out that she had to tell him that he didn't have long to live. (I read this a few days after having a horrible nightmare that my daughter had died.) Then she wrote about his response and it was equally heartbreaking. While knowing what the outcome was going to be, I prayed every night that this boy would get to live as long as possible. However, it was only a month later that I heard about his passing on Shabbat. His parents are both Rabbis, which makes the whole situation even harder to grasp, both as a mother and a Jew. I recently heard a song by Luke Bryan called "Drink a Beer" and one part summed up my thoughts perfectly:

"Funny how the good ones go
Too soon, but the good Lord knows
The reasons why it gets
Sometimes the greater plan is kinda hard to understand
Right now it don't make sense
I can't make it all make sense"

Anyway, there are two things related to the question that Darwin Shrugged posed to us. The first is whether we should turn a blind eye to what is happening in the world. I tend to flock to articles involving stuff happening to kids. It's definitely out of morbid curiosity. Most of the cases involve child abuse though. I feel so distanced from that because I would never do that to my children. However, when it comes to reading a blog written by a Jewish mother around my age with a child around my son's age, it's hard to just completely push it aside. Truth be told, I met this mother a long time ago, when we were freshmen in high school. I stake no claim to fame here, but knowing her has bridged the distance I could normally forge between myself and the situation at hand. Like if she were a complete stranger, it might have been easier to glaze over the article and file it away as just something sad that is happening. I can only read about so much tragic stuff happening to other kids before I completely lose my mind. However, it is different in this case. I still read the mother's blog and her pain is so real and so accessible. It makes me wish I still knew her in person so I could give her a hug.

I'm guessing it was easier for my parents to raise us because they didn't have the Internet with all these sad and horrible stories right at their fingertips. The most we heard about as kids were about other kids being kidnapped and we were always cautious. Until an acquaintance died freshman year of high school, I thought kids were immune to death. Nowadays, it's hard for the topic to not come up. I don't think my kids are going to come across such articles, but I'm still overprotective of them and I tend to become a hypochondriac on their behalves.

The other thing that came to mind when this question came up was also related to the situation of the boy dying from leukemia. It had more to do with his mother having to tell him he didn't have long to live. I brought it up to a friend a few days later, asking why the mother would have to tell her son such horrible news. My friend said that when kids are sick, they grow up really fast and you can't always hide this information from them. It made me wonder if I would want to know such a truth if I were the one facing death's door, Hashem forbid. What would I do with such information? Would I want to live out my days as completely as possible, attending to every item on my bucket list? Or would I just throw in the towel, saying "What's the point?!?"

On the same token, would I want to impart such news to my kids if, Hashem forbid, they were in this situation? My oldest son worries about everything as it is, so he'd be the hardest person to whom I'd have to impart such news. However, I think he'd be onto me if I were secretive. Would I want his last days to be clouded with such despair? Or would I owe it to him to know the truth so he could prepare by saying his goodbyes and getting a last wish? It's such a gray area and I hope I am never in such a situation that I have to make this decision. It's another reason I think that the boy's mother is one of the bravest people I know. That is, aside from another brave mother I know who lost her daughter in a similar way a while back and somehow manages to stay optimistic about life. I wish I could connect these two mothers because I feel like the one who had been through it years before would be able to understand what this mother who just lost her son is going through in a way that many other parents never will, B"H. She'd be able to offer her guidance and strength that others, even with all their words of support, might not be able to. (She also had to make a difficult life-or-death decision about her daughter and feels what she did was best.)

I apologize for the heaviness of this post, but this has been weighing on my mind ever since November. I attended a wedding the day after the boy died and the contrast of the joy of that day to the sorrow emanating from Facebook posts about the boy was just so raw and intense. There's nothing like seeing a mother beaming with pride under the chuppah at her son's wedding while thinking of a mother who will never get to even see her son become a Bar Mitzvah. I didn't share these thoughts with people at the wedding because I wasn't going to bring them down too. I wanted to get it all out here. I still pray for the family of the boy who died so that they will have strength to get through each day. That's all I can offer for now. However, I plan to donate to St. Baldrick's, as the mother is participating and it's to fund research for a cure so that no other family has to go through this ever again. If you'd like to donate to this cause, visit the 36 Rabbis Shave for the Brave page. Thank you.