Adina gritted her teeth as she looked at the back brace
sitting on a chair in the corner of her room. That's right,
sitting. It seemed to her that the brace was sneering back at
her. The hard, white plastic and leather straps were bad
enough, but the symmetry of the brace was a constant reminder
of her own difference from the rest of her class at a time
when being `normal' and like all of her friends was so
crucial. Alright, she wore braces on her teeth, but so did a
good percentage of her class. You could almost call it a
status symbol but however you looked at it, it was
acceptible. But this huge back brace that went from shoulder
to hip... ugh! She wouldn't wear it. Other than her eagle-
eyed mother, so far no one else had ever noticed that her
back was beginning to curve and twist. This expensive, custom-
made brace looked to Adina horribly misshapen, exaggerating
the imperfections of her spine. Well, she wouldn't wear it.
Besides, it was hot and uncomfortable. No one could force her
to wear it, she decided, and finished straightening up her
room for Shabbos.
After candlelighting and Kabbolas Shabbos, Adina curled up on
the sofa with a newly borrowed book. She was not yet deeply
engrossed in the twists and turns of the plot, and was able
to hear a gentle knock on the door. Ima, who was in the
middle of setting the table, hurried to answer and Adina
heard her exclaim, "Mrs. Levine! How nice of you to come by!
Your daughter wasn't sure whether you'd be able to make it
for Shabbos."
Adina glanced up casually and her eyes widened. In walked an
older version of her upstairs neighbor, elegantly dressed and
coiffed, but bent over and humpbacked. "My husband and son-in-
law went to a minyan that finishes early, so don't let
me shmoose too long," Mrs. Levine said with a smile.
"Mazel tov on your twin granddaughters," Ima said warmly. "I
hope Henny doesn't mind that we're stealing you away from
them."
"My younger daughter, Sari, is helping out with the twins
now. They were born in Nissan, you remember, and here it is
Elul. This is only the second time I've seen them." Mrs.
Levine nodded sadly and bit her lip. "Actually, I must thank
you for motivating me to come here. You know, I don't get out
much, but after we spoke this week, I felt I had to come."
"We appreciate that you did," Ima said. "Mrs. Levine, this is
my daughter, Adina. Adina, as you can see for yourself, Mrs.
Levine is the mother of our upstairs neighbor, Mrs. Stein.
She lives in Bayit Vegan."
Adina's eyebrows shot up. Mrs. Levine lived so close to them
and she'd never met her before! She had assumed that Mrs.
Stein's mother lived abroad.
Mrs. Levine was watching Adina. "What kind of mother or
Bubbie never comes to visit, right?" she guessed her
thoughts. She sighed deeply and her eyes filled with tears.
Adina stared in horror. She HATED when people cried. It was
just so embarrassing. She didn't know why she regarded
crying as being something so terrible. (Was she afraid,
herself, of losing control?)
A minute passed and Mrs. Levine cleared her throat. "Sorry
about that. Shabbos and all. It is pretty unusual to
have a mother living nearby who doesn't help out her daughter
with twin babies, but it's not from lack of love." Her eyes
misted again.
"I was sixteen when the school nurse said something about my
having scoliosis. My family didn't have the money to go to a
doctor to even check it out, so I just went on with my life,
hoping it wouldn't be as terrible as the nurse had described.
I got married, had two daughters, raised them, and got a job
as a bookkeeper in a small import-export company. But by the
time I was in my late thirties, I could no longer walk.
Because of my back."
Adina swallowed. Her mind went blank.
"The doctor suggested that surgery might help but I was
afraid. I asked him about a back brace, but he said that I
was already too old for it to help. I begged him, though, and
this is the hump you see. The brace obviously hasn't
straightened my back, but at least I can walk."
Her voice dropped. "You won't believe that an older woman
like me could be such a baby, but I'm ashamed to go outside.
I'm always anxious that people are looking at me, gawking at
me..." Again she fought back tears. "I know I'm being
foolish. I can't bring myself to go to weddings or even for
walks outside in nice weather. My husband or Sari do all the
shopping and errands. When I absolutely must go out, like for
a doctor's appointment or when the twins were born, I take a
car service so I won't be seen outside. How I wish I could
have had the brace when I was young..." She looked directly
at Adina. "You don't know how fortunate you are."
Adina had tears in her eyes by then, as well.
Oh, how she disliked her brace, but as her family sang
zemiros and ate the Shabbos meal, she wore it, making
no comment when her father said how nice she looked sitting
up straight.
The next week in school, Adina's teacher spoke about how Elul
is the time to change attitudes as well as actions. During
that class, Adina couldn't help but feel that the teacher's
words were addressed to her personally, and afterwards, she
went up to her to voice her suspicions.
The teacher laughed gently. "That reminds me of the famous
story of R' Isser Zalman Meltzer who once heard a
maggid exhort upon sholom bayis and immediately
concluded that he was the target, that he was amiss in this
area. Well, Adina, I did not have you in mind more than any
one else in the class; the message is universal and I
certainly hope that each girl takes what I said personally.
And by the way, one of my sisters had scoliosis and wore a
brace for three years. I remember how hard it was for her at
the beginning but she did get used to it. We all saw a
tremendous amount of growth because of it, and I don't mean
the few centimeters that she gained in height. You see, as
her spine straightened out, she became deeper, more sensitive
to other people and more hard-working.
"Her physiotherapist told her that the religious girls she
works with are more cooperative about doing the exercises she
prescribed. They have more self discipline than her secular
patients, since they were more used to and more motivated to
do what was right than just what they wanted or felt like. My
sister saw her scoliosis as a chance for making a Kiddush
Hashem."
Adina blinked, again speechless. She was fully aware that she
still had a problem regarding her attitude to the brace, but
what was she supposed to do about it? She thought back to
when she had been measured for the brace. She hadn't been
particularly cooperative then, until finally, the technician
had addressed her.
"Look here, this contraption is going to be uncomfortable; we
won't pretend otherwise. But that's how it's going to help
you. Think of it as temporary. You'll have to wear it for a
year and a half, maybe two. But I have to wear mine
for the rest of my life!"
Adina's jaw had dropped. Her eyes were suddenly able to trace
the outline of a brace, smaller than her own, on the
technician's lanky frame. She would never have known had he
not said anything. And he seemed so matter- of-fact about it.
That helped put things into perspective again... a
little."
"But a brace like mine is noticeable, isn't it?" Adina asked
her teacher.
"Yes, people will notice... that your parents care about
you." Adina smiled. "But you know what, Adina? You'll find
that some people will notice and others won't."
Later on that day, as she was waiting in line at the grocery
to buy baking supplies for Yom Tov, she felt someone staring
at her back. She turned around to see a girl in her parallel
high school class. Adina took a deep breath, then flashed a
bright smile. Her schoolmate became flustered and quickly
busied herself with her own groceries. Adina smiled to
herself, feeling victorious. Not over the other girl, but
over her own self-consciousness.
Two days later, she went shopping for a new outfit for Yom
Tov. Her old clothes no longer fit, due to the added bulk of
her orthopedic `friend.' She was scrutinizing herself in a
pale green suit in the mirror when she caught sight of her
friend, Miri, coming towards her.
"Hi, Adina! Oh, that really looks gorgeous on you!" Miri
reached over to adjust the bottom edge of the jacket and her
fingers brushed against hard plastic. "Hey, what's this?"
Adina smiled secretively and whispered, "It's a terrorist
bomb belt." Actually, this was not her type of humor, but she
was glad she had been able to joke about her brace. Miri
nodded in sudden understanding and smiled appreciatively.
*
This had been an interesting Elul, Adina reflected three
weeks later, as she eyed her brace -- which was regularly
removed for one out of the 24 hours -- sitting on the chair.
Her eyes wandered over a depression here, a curve there, a
protruberance on the inside. The brace was no longer her
enemy, but could she say that getting it was the best thing
that ever happened to her? Not yet.
Maybe in a few years, she'd look back and see what she'd
gained in character and maturity. In backbone, she thought
with a smile. The brace seemed to symbolize her life in
general: it had been designed especially for her, to push her
spine into place here, straighten it out there. Wasn't this
like life in general, with its high points and low points,
unexpected curves of life, its pressures. Weren't these also
custom designed to straighten us all out?
Wasn't it true that each particular occurence and
circumstance in life is tailored and exactly measured to each
of us, for our own good, by a loving and expert Master
Designer, Master Physiotherapist, Master Psychotherapist?
Adina didn't know what the next year would bring, but she
would try to be accepting and even grateful. She took her
machzor off the shelf and dusted it lovingly, giving
it a spontaneous kiss.
May this be a good year for all of Klall Yisroel!
