One Year Later
Originally appeared on www.5tjt.com - May 4, 2017
On the 7th day of Iyar, which was May 3 of this year, my family and I commemorated the first yahrzeit of our beloved son and brother, Aryeh Natan, a’h. We went to the cemetery, stood by his grave, and said the prayers and Tehillim that one says for a family member who has died. We looked at the stone with Ari’s name on it and are still trying to come to terms with the fact that this is Ari’s permanent resting place here on earth. Ari will no longer be walking in through the front door. Ari will no longer be calling on the phone, and we will no longer hear the sound of his voice. Ari’s grave is the only place that we can visit with him, until we meet again in Olam HaBa. Is this all that I have left of the beautiful blue-eyed boy I brought home almost 29 years ago?
It has been a long and heartbreaking year. My husband has been saying Kaddish for the past 12 months. He told me that he saw Ari’s face every time he recited the prayer. He said the last Kaddish for Ari at Minchah on the day of the yahrzeit, which was difficult to bear. The mourner’s prayer was my husband’s link to Ari throughout the most unimaginable time of his life. Kaddish helped my husband pay tribute to my son.
I struggled with what I could do to keep Ari’s memory alive, not just for me, but for those around me who loved him. Ari died of a heroin overdose. I felt that it was important for me to make the public aware that drug use is prevalent within the Orthodox community. If we are to save our children, we need to do something about it now. Last year, following Ari’s death, when Shloshim ended, I decided to write an article as a memorial to the beautiful young man we lost. At that time, I expressed my thoughts about Ari’s addiction and what I had hoped I could accomplish in this time, the first year of his passing. It was difficult, because each time I thought about Ari, I would see his smiling face and his twinkling blue eyes and remember the boy that once was.
I did, however, attempt to do what I sought, and intend to continue on that path, all in the memory of my beautiful son who died way too soon.
After my article was published in the Five Towns Jewish Times, I received several phone calls from people who had children suffering with the illness of drug addiction. I tried to explain that I was not a drug counselor or therapist, but that didn’t seem to matter. People were reaching out because they were at a loss as to what to do, frightened for their children, or just needing someone to lend an ear and listen. It was upsetting to hear that so many people were dealing with the same or similar issues that I had dealt with over the last 12 years. My only hope was that they would not end up with the same result. I listened and tried to help, by guiding them to the appropriate professionals who would hopefully be able to get a handle on their specific situations. But I had to make sure that those with whom I spoke understood that even though I had gone through my own tragedy, and had quite a bit of knowledge through my own experiences, I was not a professional in the field of drug addiction.
Throughout this last year, I learned a lot about addiction. I learned that it truly is a disease. Specifically, according to the former surgeon-general Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, “Addiction is a chronic brain disease that has the potential for both recurrence (relapse) and recovery.” Essentially, addiction can affect anyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from. Gone are the days of casually experimenting with drugs, thinking that it’s no big deal. No one knows whether or not they are predisposed to becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol. We have lost so many young people from the Orthodox community to drug overdoses. I believe that all of those who died started out thinking that they would be OK, they could stop anytime they wanted and their drug use was no big deal.
In the last year, I was privileged to speak out publicly about my son Ari and about addiction and the unfortunate toll it has been taking on too many families in our community. I was approached by several young people who have been in recovery for a number of years. Some even knew Ari. I received a message from one who had known him while they were in rehab together. He was shocked to learn that Ari had died. He never would have thought that drugs would kill Ari, because Ari was known to pressure other addicts to stay in rehab and work the program. This young man told me that had it not been for Ari pressuring him to stay the course, he too would have died. Ari saved his life. Who knows how many others he saved? Sadly, he couldn’t save himself. And that is the problem with addiction. There is no guarantee that you can survive this dreadful illness. Why start?
The message I am trying to convey, in the memory of my beloved son, is that prevention is key to fighting addiction. We can start in the schools with appropriate programming, so that our youth learn to “just say no.” In addition, we need to assist those who are in the midst of fighting the disease, and not shun those who desperately need our help and intervention.
Ari struggled so much in this world, and even through his struggles, he tried to help others. Ari was a gift that we received and a gift that was taken back much too soon. All of us have a mission to accomplish in this world. We don’t know what that mission is as we move on through our daily lives. I’m not quite sure what Ari’s mission was. Maybe it was drug awareness. Maybe it was saving lives. However, his mission here in this world is complete.
In Ari’s memory, I hope to continue to help get the message out about drug awareness and prevention, and make sure that there is help for those in the throes of the disease.
May Ari’s neshamah, and the neshamos of all of the children we have lost to addiction, have an aliyah.