He came in like a stormy wind, threw his numerous files down on the floor with a thud, and said with an enormous smile, “Do you get it? That’s it, I’m home. Do you get it?”
I try, but it’s not easy.
Eleven and a half years of an arduous journey on a ghost train ended in a temporary calm station: my Orr (not his real name) was released today after two years in the Bnei Arazim post-hospitalization rehabilitation boarding school and returned to live at home.
No, you too do not get it. Because you were not with us at each hospitalization, when the best of doctors stuttered.
Because you did not hear me scream at the community of experts from the Welfare Department who suggested—for my benefit—to give up on this adoption.
Because you did not have to stay with us during the most difficult moments of disappointment, when he and I were devastated by pain and frustration and surrounded by piles of broken furniture, shattered glass, parts of computers hit with impotent rage, and we both sat on the floor and cried, while another capricious hope spread its wings and hurried to escape through the only open window in the house.
And you were not with Orr when he was tagged via an absolute mistake; when they stuffed him with the wrong medicines; when they said to me “Everything is because of you” using nicer words; when they ordered me to “take your child out of here and go”, in his presence, of course.
You were not there when my friends suddenly disappeared. That’s fine. It was impossible to put up with us. Today I understand it. The difficulty, one disappearing person said to me, surpasses human dimensions, and there is a limit to friendship.
And you also were not there when little by little, out of a difficulty that certainly was bigger than his tiny dimensions, Orr fought. Against all the demons that haunted him. Against anybody who, in his imagination, was threatening and frightening: for a few years this included also me until he started to believe in me, until we sat together on the ghost train. In those years, against all odds, he just grew up.
And you were not present when Doctor Spitz, Head of the Child Guidance Unit at the hospital in Nahariya, walked on his tiptoes beside the child to whom the last medicine cocktail seemed to be helping, even very much: a last possible medication, and we were able to take him out of the hospital and transfer him to Bnei Arazim and to move with him from Nahariya to Rehovot to be by his side.
And surely you were not there when I met Dr. Shulamit Blank, founder and chairperson of the Bnei Arazim Foundation, for the first time: she observed Orr for a long time, chatted a little with him and greatly irritated him, and later said to me, “He will take the matriculation exams. He will be alright”. And I did not dare to laugh out loud, I wanted so much for him to be accepted, I knew so much that this was the last station before hell.
Two years went by. The boy turned sixteen. A couple of weeks ago he traveled to Eilat, by bus, with a friend. Now he is at home. Soon he will take the matriculation exams.
This would not have been possible without Dr. Blank and the wonderful staff at Bnei Arazim.
It is not a simple place, and certainly, there is a lack of consensus about it, but you were not there with us to see how much love and devotion and meticulousness and consistency and investment are used to grow children with whom no one knew what to do, and whose torrential lives included too many hospitalizations, too much violence, too many things missing.
When everybody else raised their hands to give up, they opened their arms in a brave and resolute embrace and put them around my son’s restless body and soul. They calmed him and settled the score with him. They taught him not to hit and break and destroy, and they taught him to learn and to love the school (minus the Israel Heritage lessons and some other things about which he complains like any regular adolescent), and they taught him that nothing bad will happen to him if he shows the world how much he loves and is generous and also strong.
“Train up a child in the way he should go” is written on the sign in Bnei Arazim’s entrance hall. Clearly, I was suspicious. In my task as a digger, I conducted an unparalleled thorough investigation of the place and its people before entrusting my son to them. And afterward, I fought for him to get accepted. Even later, I did not understand enough about the advantages of the therapeutic method used there. Today, I already speak – not always, because it is awfully difficult – in the language bequeathed by Dr. Blank, a consistent language that includes authority and results, responsibility and teaching, and zero tolerance for violence, whatever its reason.
Throughout my entire life, I did not have such a good teacher as her. Of course, I rebelled: there were also fights and yelling, mostly on my part, until the results simply spoke for themselves in a loud voice.
Bnei Arazim: the rate of return to the community of the children treated there is among the highest in the world for institutions of its kind. The rate of instructor and staff turnover is relatively low for other boarding schools. “Here we do not cut”, said a wonderful social worker to a girl whom I helped onboard. “Here we talk, and there will always be someone who listens to you”. The girls’ arms were marked with exceedingly deep scars, down to the bone, testimony to too many cries for help in the wrong places. A year later, when I saw her star at the end-of-year party, beautiful and with a glowing smile, I wept: and I wept even more when I saw my son on the stage, and beside him I saw the entire road. And the ghost train in which we still have reserved seats.
But no, we do not want to go back on it. We want to live, simply, a good life of value. Orr will start volunteering with the firefighters. I will continue helping, as best as I can, families with children like Orr. There are many of those. You don’t understand what they go through: I already do.
I am not worthy of the dirt under your feet, Dr. Shulamit Blank. And I am full of gratitude toward Michal, Sharon, Daniel, Abed, Gilad, Dikla, Zehava, I did not ask their permission to write about them, so I mention them only by name: there are no other people like them. Every one of them taught me an important chapter on Orr. And about parenthood. And humaneness.
Also, this would have been impossible without the friends who dared and were not too afraid: Silvia and Itay, Tony and Ella and Gil, Leah and Sharon, and Nerya and Ami. You too have a part in the gradual and slow stopping of the train. And first and foremost – Orr. My beloved, my enigma – follow your road. You already know well how to walk. I am grateful to this incredible boy for the trust he put in me, for the enormous joy he produces around him, for his love. And for his readiness to watch with me all the chapters of all the seasons of Southpark, and also to make popcorn by himself.
