Only Hishtadlus
My mother has been hospitalized for a long while, and we’re all trying to help her as much as possible. I took the job of arranging for shifts of family members to stay with her at her bedside. I’m in touch with all my siblings and get information about additional people who can help out, and I tell them when to come. This issue became very major for me. I felt a heavy responsibility to ensure that Ima would never be alone.
The hardest time to find someone to be with her is during Yamim Tovim. These are days when people are overloaded, children need their parents at home, and the head of a household has many things to do. On the other hand, in the hospital time seems to stand still. Ima lies there having no house to clean after a two-day Yom Tov, and no endless cooking. She does not need to be on hand to help with the building of the sukkah, and she needs company. Needs it desperately.
I, as her devoted son, am preoccupied with the mitzvah of taking care of her now. I knew that a certain woman was supposed to stay with her on Tzom Gedalia. That day I called Ima to ask how she was doing, and I discovered that she was alone. The woman hadn’t shown up, and I did not know of anyone else who could be there. What to do? I couldn’t go out to the hospital just then. Who would be able to go? I had no idea, and I had already taken care of arranging for someone to stay with her. It was hard for me to bear the thought that Ima was alone for so long, and it bothered me even more that after all my efforts, something like this had happened. My wife gave me chizuk and told me that the mitzvah of kibbud av va’eim was certainly mine, even without visible results.
“Ribbono shel Olam,” I davened from the depth of my heart, “I did my own hishtadlus, but You’re showing me that I don’t run the world. Please help my mother not to be alone for so long. If You want, You can send someone to visit her.”
Several moments later my father called me. “Do you hear?” he said. “My sister came today from out of town to visit Ima, without anyone telling her to do so!”
I had done only a bit of hishtadlus, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu brought someone to sit near the ill patient. The results had been wondrously arranged by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, without consulting with me at all….
