Because of my job, I meet many families and hear many life stories. So many make me laugh, more than I care to admit make me cry, but it’s always a joy and honor to be invited into a family’s story and get to witness the human experience over and over again in so many beautiful ways. But then every so often, I hear a story that leaves me frozen in incredulity. A story that moves me beyond words. A story that makes me take pause and realize the beauty and fragility of life.
This is one of those stories.
Because this is the story of a baby. A baby, who just by her very existence, saved her family’s life. Saved her family's life.
One September day, a dozen or so years ago, her mother was nearing the end of her pregnancy. Feeling well, she intended on going to work but her baby had other plans. Serendipitous plans. Having suddenly been diagnosed with preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, the young mother was hospitalized.
And because of that…she did not go to work later that week. She was not there on a particular Tuesday.
Her work was at the World Trade Center.
That Tuesday was September 11, 2001.
Because of this little girl and her divine intervention, her mother is alive today, her brother is alive today, her father is alive today. Not just in the corporeal sense but also in the spiritual sense, because if not for her, he would have lost his pregnant wife that day and who knows the tragic trajectory his life would have been put upon.
I know, chills, right?
So you can imagine the amount of joy and rightful fanfare that went into this young woman's coming of age in the Jewish religion, her Bat Mitzvah. The time when she is held accountable for her actions, when she is expected to be a member of her community, when she is to follow the teachings of the Torah, when she finally becomes a woman according to the laws of Judaism.
But you know what? That's old hat for someone who started this life in such an magnificent and marvelous way. What's a little Torah Study when you are the one who single-handedly breathed life into your family, right?
Okay, let's forget all that and just party because this girl knows how to do it right! Take a look a the super gorgeous super entertaining fun time we had at Forsgate Country Club! I can't tell you how much fun I had and what a joy it was to get to know her. It's girls like her that make me thankful for this job, as her trajectory is one of life, love, and success.
I can't wait to see what she does.