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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Do not give up on life or hope, even when pain and loss seem to leave no way forward, because a blessing can arrive after a painful moment. Rabbi Fischel Schachter tells his mother's story of despair after 12 years of infertility and Holocaust losses, and how a bus driver's words helped her choose to keep living.
Key Points
- Rabbi Schachter's mother, a Holocaust survivor and the only surviving member of her family, was told by a Madison Avenue fertility doctor about 60 years ago that she would never have children.
- Overwhelmed by despair, she rode a bus back and forth, saying she would never get off because she had nothing to live for.
- The bus driver told her the bus was going to the garage and urged her to get off and get on with her life.
- She took his words as a message from Heaven, decided she had no right to give up on her life, and accepted that "whatever is going to be is going to be."
- About a year later she had a son, the speaker himself.
- The story extends to painful relationships: the speaker says that once a hurtful relationship is over, one should not keep harming oneself over it.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Leave a harmful situation and protect yourself, and when in an abusive relationship, do not stay in it. Consult and speak with trusted people for support. Once a painful situation has ended, stop repeatedly re-injuring yourself with anger, hurt, confusion, and betrayal, and let the past move on.
- The story is presented as a personal family account told by the speaker, and the doctor's and bus driver's words are reported by the speaker rather than verified.
- The speaker notes that logic does not easily reach a person who is deeply hurting, which is why a timely outside message can matter.
Bottom Line
Painful moments can feel final, but the speaker's family story suggests that refusing to give up and accepting help from an unexpected source can open the way to a new beginning.
