Just a Dream

The last two years have flown by, in retrospect. Of course, there were many days that felt like they would never end, usually because someone in the family was sick, or because my husband was out of town. What I can’t seem to grasp yet is the fact that my youngest son turned two years old back in February.

I also can’t understand how he can possibly get cuter every day! I’m so crazy in love with that little boy, sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself! Now that he can talk, he has no problem telling me to go away, or saying, “Yucky!” when I kiss him on his sweet little lips. I still refer to him as “the baby” and I haven’t even begun to think about toilet training him. At least he sleeps in a toddler bed. So I’m not that out of touch with reality.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have a little brother or sister, so in my mind, he is still the baby. I wonder how much longer I’m going to keep calling him “the baby” for. I’m hoping I stop before he starts shidduchim (dating.)

My pregnancy with him was by far the most difficult pregnancy I’ve had. My thyroid went completely crazy, making me feel like I was going to die every day, G-d forbid. My hands suffered from severe Carpal Tunnel syndrome, which has not yet resolved. I had so much pressure and cramping the last two months of pregnancy that I could barely walk around. All in all, it was not fun.

That time of my life felt like it was never going to end. Each day, particularly during the first 14 weeks, I didn’t know how I was going to make it until the next day. I just couldn’t function because I felt so sick. My husband had to take over my responsibilities around the house, plus deal with his job and the lack of sleep because he was forced to listen to me cry and moan every night because I couldn’t sleep. He was also near breaking point.

When I think about it, I don’t know how we made it through that difficult time. I feel like Hashem had us hanging on by a thin thread, just keeping us at the point of surviving.

But now, when I squeeze his chunky little body in my arms and kiss him just underneath those delicious chins of his, I realize that he was worth all of the suffering and beyond. When he laughs his sweet, contagious laugh and tells me, “Imma bad boy!” I just melt to pieces. I go crazy when he gets annoyed with hearing how much I love him by yelling at me, “No I la you!” in his best Ricky Ricardo impersonation.

Isn’t it a tremendous blessing that we forget the intensity of the pain that we go through after a while? Do you know what I find even more amazing? It’s that when we suffer through pain for a purpose, whether it’s getting braces or giving birth, many times we would welcome the suffering again because the outcome was so wonderful.

It’s easy to say that when we see that the outcome was the best thing we could have hoped for. But what about when we don’t see the positive result? What about when we feel that we’re suffering in vain?

Obviously we need to work every day on strengthening our emuna and really trust that Hashem knows what He’s doing. Furthermore, as much as it hurts, we must do our best to thank Hashem for our suffering, and not complain that it is unfair. Complaining to Hashem is basically telling Him that we think He doesn’t know what He’s doing, and that He just likes to punish us. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Thanking Hashem is the key to sweetening the harsh judgments that we are going through. It’s also the key to strengthening our emuna so we don’t end up feeling like we’re suffering for no reason.

There is something else I realized. Many times we can look back at painful situations, and we feel like they are far-off dreams. We can’t remember the pain as intensely as we experienced it back then. This is what a person experiences after death, when he looks back at his life and what he went through. At that point, he will see how his suffering enabled him to receive spiritual rewards that we simply cannot understand with our limited brains. He will even be sorry that he didn’t receive more suffering, once he sees the reward that came as a result.

When the soul leaves the body, suddenly the person’s entire life feels like it was just a dream, and he finds himself in the “real” reality. It’s like we’re now living in a world of virtual reality, and when we die, we will re-experience the real reality. Therefore, we must do our best to not take our suffering too much to heart. We must internalize that whatever we go through, one day we will see the positive outcomes that could only come about as a result of our difficult times.

Then, we’ll find ourselves thanking Hashem for all of the suffering and singing Nelly’s, “It Was Only Just a Dream.” Here is my version:

Thinking ‘bout you

Thinking ‘bout me

Thinking ‘bout life

What it’s meant to be

Open my eyes

It was only just a dream…