And although we could not join my parents for Yom Tov and despite the fact that I was now a grown-up married woman, every Pesach my father would remind me of the story of the first Seder night of my life.
After my eldest child married, the Seder took on a different dimension, for soon we had grandchildren around our table and the joy of that experience was boundless. But one year my Yom Tov joy turned into a time of anguish and pain. As usual, I was expecting my children and grandchildren. My preparations were feverish – I wanted everything cooked and baked and the table set so that when they arrived everything would be in place and I could welcome them without tension.
But as it is written, “Rabos machshovos b’lev ish…a man makes plans but in the end it is Hashem’s will that prevails.”
On erev Pesach in our home the phones would always ring incessantly – people calling to wish a good Yom Tov or to ask my husband some last-minute sheilos. When the phone rang for the hundredth time that day, I picked it up and said, “Ah guten erev Yom Tov.” But the voice of my brother at the other end of the line made my heart fall.
What’s the matter?” I asked, bracing myself.
“Tatie had a stroke. He’s not responding. I’m waiting for an ambulance. The doctor will meet us in the emergency room.”
For what seemed like an eternity I couldn’t find my voice, until I finally stammered, “I’m coming. I’ll meet you there.”
I called my daughter Chaya Sora, hoping I would find her at home. Fortunately she was still there, getting ready to load up her car. I told her what had happened and that as the oldest child she would be in charge. I outlined all that still remained to be done as clearly and concisely as I could.
“Ima,” she reassured me, “don’t worry. Everything should be fine. Zaidie should only have a refuah sheleimah.”
My husband was not at home. It was his tradition every erev Shabbos and Yom Tov to visit the sick in our community, so I asked my children to tell him what had happened. “Don’t worry, Ima,” they said. “Everything will be fine. Let’s just daven that Zaidie will be gezunt.”
I had difficulty speaking. My voice was choked with tears. I ran to pack an overnight bag, throwing things in without thought. I was so overwrought, I didn’t know what to take with me. But my children came to the rescue. “Ima, you have to take a Haggadah. And a small Seder plate with all the fixings.”
Even as they spoke, they were packing up the charoses and the zeroah – and as they reached for the marror it occurred to me that this was one Pesach I wouldn’t need marror – the bitterness was already in my mouth.
My husband had arrived home by then and he and the children walked me to the taxi and stood there waving until the car turned the corner. The drive was sheer agony. How could this happen to my father – the tzaddik, the crown of our family, a pillar of K’lal Yisrael?
The taxi finally pulled up in front of the hospital and I raced into the emergency room. There, on a stretcher, lay my father, unconscious. The doctor still hadn’t come. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking away. My brother had to get back to his shul and make a Seder for my mother and his mishpachah, so I told him to go home. I had come prepared to stay.