Mishpacha - always my malky

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JEWISH FAMILY WEEKLY
ISSUE 672 I 17 AV 5777 I AUGUST 9, 2017
always
my
malky
Society dealt her a crushing defeat,
but Avreimie Klein never gave up
on his daughter
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FOR FIRM FOOTING AMID
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SHE WAS A
SPARKLING
CHILD, the
fourth of five
growing up
in chassidish
Boro Park.
But then the
barbs of life
stung, and
Malky felt
those bites like
bitter wounds.
Difficulty
in school.
Shattered selfesteem.
In and
out of rehab.
And all along
her parents
were with
her —
UNTIL THE
END
always my malky
BY Yisroel Besser PHOTOS Amir Levy, Family archives
46 MISHPACHA 17 Av 5777 | August 9, 2017 MISHPACHA 47

Always My Malky
Avreimie and Rivka Klein
sit at the kitchen table as if meeting an
insurance agent or contractor.
As if their world hasn’t exploded into a
million little pieces.
As if the words of the past months —
words meant to comfort, stories
of others who’ve lost and
grieved, compliments
about their poise and
dignity — have come
close to reflecting their
new reality, when
nothing could. Reality
is suspended now,
because for so long, in
such a deep way, their
essence and identity
and reason to live were
the role they were given:
Malky’s parents.
SO WHAT NOW?
A
this very table, a commitment was made long ago, a decision as hard
as the tabletop’s marble.
And once it was made, the Kleins never looked back.
Rivka Klein, just a few weeks after sitting shivah for her beloved
daughter Malky, who died of a heroin overdose on June 29, looks up,
fire in her eyes.
“I don’t like when people say, ‘Oh, you did everything you could, you’re such amazing
parents, you never stopped trying.’ You know, parents with a child in Sloan Kettering,
lo aleinu, sit there day and night, and no one says they’re so amazing. They’re just parents.
It’s what parents do.”
Avreimie gets up, paces a bit, sits down by the computer, and now suddenly
turns back to us. “Okay, I’m ready,” he blurts out. “It’s worth the whole article if
you can get out this one message. There is no such thing as a bad child. There
are no bad kids.”
He refers to a recent video in which popular speaker Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak
Jacobson told Malky’s story and drew relevant lessons.
“I watched it, and then read the comments, and I thought to myself,
‘Wow. Some parents are lucky enough to be clueless. I’m happy for them.
Others aren’t as fortunate.’ ”
He turns to face me, a question in his eyes, as if he’s searching for something
dear and can’t find it.
“I once wrote an article in my mind, the title was ‘Foresight, Hindsight,
and Insight.’ Insight is actually getting it, the reality of being inside the
topic, not outside.”
The dining room wall in the attractive Klein home in Boro Park
features an exquisite picture of Rav Shmuel Tzvi Horowitz, known as Rav
Hershe’le of Spinka, the rebbe of the Klein family.
“The Rebbe once advised a friend of mine to switch his son from a chassidish
mossad to Torah Vodaath. I remember my surprise. I didn’t get it. I was blissfully
naive. Some things you need to experience in order to understand.”
The pain that colors Avreimie Klein’s face subsides for a moment as he speaks
of his rebbe.
“Years before we got into this… this… parshah,” he says, shrugging as he comes up
short in finding the right word, “I got my marching orders from my rebbe.”
He goes back to a simpler time, when his oldest son was very young and not particularly
interested in attending the makeshift cheder in the bungalow colony where they spent summer
vacation. “He didn’t want to go learn, plain and simple. I was by my rebbe one evening and I told
him about the situation. I mentioned that my son really wanted a new bike, so I would use that
as an incentive if he went to cheder nicely.
48 MISHPACHA 17 Av 5777 | August 9, 2017 MISHPACHA 49

Always My Malky
“The Rebbe listened to my idea. Then he
said, ‘Yes, but buy the bicycle first. Let the
child see it. Chain it to the house and tell your
son that he’ll get it after cheder if the rebbi
says he was a good boy. And then speak to
the rebbi and make sure he finds some way
that your son was good so that the boy gets
to ride his new bicycle every day.’ ”
It was a revolutionary idea, and it laid a
foundation in Avreimie Klein’s mind, the
backdrop to advice he would receive many
years later.
The Kleins took their children’s chinuch
seriously, attending PTAs and working with
the teachers to achieve maximum results.
When their fourth child, Malky, was graduating
nursery, Rivka Klein went to the endof-year
graduation.
“Maybe Malky should repeat the year,”
the teacher casually remarked.
Then, in kindergarten, the teacher
called Rivka Klein to suggest that
they get Malky evaluated by the
Board of Education.
Dedicated parents, they
brought Malky to the free
Board of Ed evaluations.
The diagnosis was that even
though Malky was approved
for extra help, she was a brilliant
girl.
For the first few years of
school, Malky left the class a few
times a week for private lessons
and extra tutoring, but she seemed
happy. “She always had so many
friends, she was popular and fun. And
she was resilient, working through the
scholastic struggles.”
Malky
Klein’s parents
seem to recall
every comment
their daughter made, a musician’s ear
for every note in that symphony of heartbreak.
Once, in second grade, the family was enjoying
a Shabbos meal when Malky blurted
out, “My teacher says I really belong in first
grade.” Once she shared the information,
Malky appeared to relax, as if the secret had
been weighing on her. She wouldn’t forget it,
however, until her final day.
Good parents, they arranged for tutors to
help Malky with schoolwork.
“But we didn’t realize then that she had a
real learning disability. She worked hard with
the tutors, but looking back,” Avreimie says,
“I can’t even imagine what it felt like for her.
All day in school, which was painful, and then
home for a few more hours of pain.”
One day, when Malky was in the sixth grade,
the sweet, gentle child uncharacteristically
shouted, “That’s it. I’m done with tutors. I
can’t anymore.”
I can’t even
imagine
what it felt
like for her.
All day
in school,
which was
painful, and
then home
for a few
more hours
of pain
The schools were accommodating. They
created a special class for the girls who needed
extra help. “But of course, being pulled out
created a stigma, a challenge of its own.”
Through it all, Avreimie recalls, he and
his wife believed that the whole issue would
pass, that Malky, with
her emotional depth,
eager mind, and sparkling
personality, would
come through the rough
years stronger. “We saw
how many friends she had,
and knew our role was just to
get her through the school years.”
There were other children at
home, a business to run. The house
did not yet revolve around Malky.
In eighth grade, Rivka recalls, Malky finally
had “that teacher.”
“You know how you read about great teachers,
the one who could make a difference?”
Rivka allows herself a soft smile. “Malky found
her teacher. The one who believed in her. The
teacher, Mrs. Leah Handelsman, ‘got’ Malky.
Malky recommitted herself to learning.”
“I have to say, there were several wonderful
The Krule Rebbe with Avreimie
Klein, giving comfort to Malky
at Maimonides Hospital. “When
she opens her eyes and reaches
out, she’ll feel the warmth.
Tatty is there”
Malky’s great-grandfather made a
special trip to visit her — his newborn
ohr-einikel and the first to be named
after his late wife
teachers along the way. I think about Ronit
Polin, who was another bright spot in Malky’s
life, and others who were so helpful along the
journey.”
Eighth grade went nicely. In-school discussions
were all about “next year,” and high
school choices. Malky enthusiastically took
part in these conversations, confident that she
would join her friends in high school.
But the interview process didn’t go well,
and hope was quickly replaced by frustration.
When Malky finally did get invited to an interview,
the prospective principal asked her what
she was looking for in a school. “Honestly? I
would go to any school that accepts me,” came
the naive response.
Later on, Malky’s mother asked her why
she’d said that, and she shrugged. “I don’t
know,” she replied. It had just seemed the
truth.
Mrs. Klein stands up and finds a letter
Malky wrote to a friend on the last day of
school. The handwriting is childish, exuberant,
bursting with optimism. I’m going
to miss you soooo much in the summer, ’cause
we are going to high school together and we
are going to have a blast. Hope ya have fun in
Eretz Yisrael….
Everything was in place. A new start beckoned.
Except…
It was the day of Malky’s eighth grade
graduation when the message came from the
one high school that had actually accepted her.
Yeah, well, so that acceptance? Not really.
Sorry.
The words might have been more formal,
but the point was the same.
Her parents decided not to tell her. Rivka
took Malky on a trip to Europe while Avreimie
followed leads and called askanim and begged
for meetings, trying to get her reaccepted in
the first school, and eventually to find any
school for his daughter.
“Forget acceptance — we couldn’t even get
an interview.”
Avreimie’s voice is calm, controlled. “It’s
very easy to get angry, but you can’t build with
anger. We don’t blame people. I’m telling the
50 MISHPACHA 17 Av 5777 | August 9, 2017

Always My Malky
story so that you can understand who Malky
was, what was going on inside of her.”
On the first day of school, young girls in
fresh, clean uniforms carried spanking new
school bags down the Boro Park streets, but
Malky Klein had no school to go to.
Finally, a few days into the semester, the
Kleins found a school that would take Malky.
“We were so excited for her. I remember, we
wanted her to also enjoy that first-day-ofschool
feeling, even if it wasn’t really the first
day, and we ordered her a beautiful new briefcase.”
They’d learned not to be too optimistic, but
Malky’s parents looked on with hope as their
daughter went off on that first day.
A few weeks later a phone call came. The
principal grimly informed them that Malky
wasn’t really adjusting. And she was breaking
the rules. They were called in for a conference,
and informed that Malky showed
disdain for authority in several ways. First
of all, she brought expensive nosh for snack.
Also, she’d purchased an expensive birthday
gift for a friend.
“Malky finally has a school and she’s eager
to make new friends, so she bought a nice gift,”
the mother argued.
“No,” the principal asserted, “she’s trying to
‘buy off’ other girls.”
Then, the principal charged, Malky had
switched briefcases, further evidence that
she was trying to create new standards in
the school.
“No,” the parents argued, “it was just once.
We’d ordered it when she was accepted and
when it arrived, she switched, that’s all.”
The verdict was sealed.
Avreimie looked at the principal. “Okay. We
get it. Just please don’t expel her until we find
her a new school.”
They left the school and headed home, ready
to start a new round of school-searching. When
they got home, they found that Malky was already
there.
She’d been expelled.
Malky lay on the living room floor, books
fanned out all around her, as if she’d dropped
them the moment she came in. Her parents
look at the room, as if reliving the scene.
Within the bottomless
pit of pain, Malky
let her art give
expression to her inner
desolation, while still
tenaciously holding on
to a thread of light
“She was crying, in such obvious pain and
we, parents who just wanted to give her what
she needed, weren’t able to help.”
Malky was broken. She would never really
be whole again.
Mrs.
Klein’s voice rises
slightly. “My
Malky, who loved
to dress well,
Miss Fashion, spent the next three months
without a school —but wearing her uniform
every single day. She would go to stores with
me in her uniform. She wanted so badly to be
in school, to look the part.”
She wanted, but there was no school that
wanted her.
Midway through the year, an existing school
fell apart and the administration split. A new
school was forming, and they were ready to
accept Malky.
Malky Klein had a school again, and determined
to prove herself, she threw herself
into her studies.
“We hired tutors,” recalls her mother, “and
Malky would rush in from school, grab a bite,
and hurry out to study. At home, she always had
a book in her hands, cramming information.”
“We had real nachas,” her father says, allowing
the sentence to hang there for a moment
before finishing, “but we didn’t realize that it’s
like a car that’s overheating. It was too much
for a little girl.”
At the end of ninth grade, Malky came home
with a good report card. It was a new experience
for the young girl and her parents.
“We were excited for her, and even though
we knew she wanted to go to one of the schools
of her choice and rejoin her friends, we encouraged
her to wait until she had good marks for
a sustained period, until her confidence was
restored.”
But she couldn’t wait anymore. Being normal
was simply too exhilarating a prospect.
Unbeknownst to her parents, Malky marched
herself into the office of the principal in the
school where her friends were and made her
pitch.
The night before she’d gone, she’d carefully
written down the things she wanted to say to
the principal.
Avreimie goes to the computer to pull up the
notes that Malky prepared before that meeting,
talking points for her appeal. Yet another
exhibit in the chronicles of a broken heart.
Please here me out. Before telling me no for
the best reasons please give me a chance.
It doesn’t matter who somebody may have bin,
it matters who they want to be. Who I want to be
is the best I can be. I want to grow and change
and work harder, I want to c what I’m capable
of cause I bet it’s a lot…. I want to go to this
school more than I’ve ever wanted anything….
I’m not a faker, I mean it…. Please, please give
me a chance, please take it into consideration
to except me for the 10th grade…. I know school
starts in less than two weeks but in five seconds
anything can happen….
Thank you for listening to me….
The principal was polite, but firm. There
was no space.
The new school year began. Malky wasn’t
herself. She returned to the original school, but
she was already burned out — she’d worked too
hard, invested too much, only to be denied the
privilege of being “normal,” in a mainstream
high school with her friends.
Night after night, she and her father would
sit in the living room and talk, really talk. One
night, she looked him in the eye and said, “At
least put me in public school. Then I’ll know
that I have a place.”
Another night, she wept and finally managed
a single sentence. “It takes me hours to
do what other kids can do in a few moments.”
Her father listened and reassured and encouraged.
But it wasn’t enough to keep Malky, Malky.
It happened so quickly. She was done.
She’d given up. She forgot about school and
found a new identity in the streets. Friends, it
turned out, gave validation more readily than
teachers. When Malky smiled, the chein was
still there, but she smiled less and less.
The parents couldn’t do much. Reb Hershele
Spinker had already left this world,
and Avreimie went to speak with the Rebbe’s
son, the Krule Rebbe, Rav Naftali Horowitz.
The Rebbe sent Avreimie into the dark
52 MISHPACHA 17 Av 5777 | August 9, 2017

Always My Malky
shadows just beyond the pale of the conventional
frum community, where angels operate.
There, the Kleins heard about a new approach
to dealing with struggling children.
“Really,” Avreimie says, “it was just an echo
of what I heard from my rebbe about the bicycle
years earlier. If a child feels loved, there’s
a chance, but once he or she doesn’t have that
stability, then rules and red lines and ultimatums
won’t work.”
Avreimie found mentors advocating for the
path of unconditional love. Malky had been
broken and the only thing that could make
her whole again would be unconditional love
and support. Otherwise, they’d only push her
further away.
Avreimie, the sort of person who does things
correctly, faced this new challenge as if it were
a business venture or home-improvement project,
gathering as much information as possible.
“I was trying not to get emotional, to develop
the right tools to help Malky. Period.”
He heard about an older chassid who’d faced
chinuch struggles with a child decades ago, back
before there were books and support groups.
The confused father had benefited from the
guidance of the Spinka Rebbe.
“I tracked him down and he recalled how
he’d told the Rebbe about how his son was
bringing negative influences into the house.
“Uber ehr iz in der heim,” the Rebbe said.
But he’s at home.
The father told the Rebbe that the son was
doing serious aveiros.
“Uber in der heim.”
He’s at home.
The Rebbe had told the father that no matter
what, a child’s place is near his or her parents,
connected to them. Avreimie and Rivka remember
a conversation with a leading educator
and advocate for these children.
“It was an intense, long conversation. He
opened our eyes to a new way of seeing Malky,
of seeing life. I told him how bright and capable
our other children were,” Avreimie says,
looking down as he speaks, “and he said, ‘If
so, can you imagine how much more difficult
things are for Malky? Not only is she learning
disabled, she’s surrounded by geniuses, so she
always feels that something’s wrong with her.’
You can say
you care
about me
and that you
worry for
me, but you
don’t know
what it’s like
to feel stupid
every day of
your life
“Malky told me one night that Steve Jobs
had also dropped out of high school, so she
had a new role model, evidence that you can
succeed without high school. I told our mentor
how I answered Malky that Jobs had
dropped out of college, which was different. I
guess I was proud of my answer, and I noticed
that he sighed. ‘What, it was a bad answer?’
I asked him.
“My mentor looked at me. ‘She had one
lifeline, something she was holding on to that
gave her security and reassured her she could
still be successful, that it was worth the fight.
And you ripped it away from her.’ ”
These
parents who’d
been feeling
powerless for so
long now knew what they had to do.
“Remember that first shopping trip?”
Avreimie says, looking across the table at
his wife.
She squares her shoulders, as if recalling
the tenacity it took. “I do.”
Malky’s mother drove her to Manhattan,
to the Abercrombie and Fitch store. “I remember
how dark it was, the bizarre smells
and strange music. It was a new world. Malky
was choosing clothing for her new life, and
I stood there crying in the darkness, then
smiling broadly as we walked back to the car.”
Malky made new friends.
“We weren’t naive. We were able to smell
her clothing when she came home, we saw
her eyes. But we’d already learned that if we
weren’t her full support system, she’d find
support elsewhere, and that wasn’t something
we wanted.”
The next few months brought a new kind
of terror.
“We literally worried for her life, all day,
all night. She was out and often in dangerous
places,” Rivka Klein says. “I remember how I
looked up to heaven and said, ‘Ribbono shel
Olam, there are three partners in a person.
My husband and I can’t do anything. You have
to keep her safe.’ ”
The late-night conversations continued,
perhaps with a new intensity.
One night, Avreimie looked at his daughter.
“You used to be so happy. What happened?”
“Tatty!” she answered with force, “I never
had a happy day in my life. It was a facade. I
was broken inside.”
“I feel your pain,” Malky’s father said empathetically.
Malky stood up, furious. “Don’t say that!
You can say you care about me and that you
worry for me, but you don’t know what it’s like
to feel stupid every day of your life.”
That summer, Malky was registered in
Camp Extreme and her parents planned a
much-needed vacation. They landed in Eretz
Yisrael and got an urgent message to call the
camp. Malky, it turned out, wasn’t just using
drugs, she’d been using heroin, which is highly
addictive and highly dangerous.
It was a dark new chapter, the hardest
one yet.
The new year brought fresh worries.
Malky wasn’t doing well, and no one was
more aware of it than her.
Malky thought that having a dog would
make her happy.
“I remember the conversation in my brain,”
Rivka says, offering a halting smile. “My husband
was, of course, all in, but it took me a bit
longer. I was really terrified of dogs. I knew
we would do it in the end, but I had to motivate
myself.”
This nice heimish family from 57th Street
in Boro Park became dog owners, the father
with the beard and shtreimel often taking the
pet for a walk.
“She was in so much pain, and the drugs
gave her a temporary reprieve, but she knew
what she was doing to herself. In the too-brief
interludes between uses, she was her sweet
self, the smile and consideration and love.
So much love,” Rivka says, shaking her head,
“as if to reassure us that the drugs weren’t
really her.”
Eventually, Malky announced that she felt
ready for rehab.
California suddenly became as common
on the Klein family itinerary as the corner
grocery store.
Malky settled into the new facility, determined
to start again.
54 MISHPACHA
17 Av 5777 | August 9, 2017

Always My Malky
“If you’d have asked others, they might have
said she wasn’t frum,” her father reflects, “but
we looked on in awe at her resolve. She fought
to keep kosher in a facility where she was the
only one. They had these gourmet meals three
times a day and she would cook herself these
prepackaged meals. She lit Shabbos candles
on Friday evenings, bringing light into the
darkest place in the world. And when Yom
Kippur came, she fasted.
“She asked us to send a siddur. I figured she
meant a machzor, but my wife said no, she said
a siddur, send a siddur.”
Deep in an emotional valley, Malky found
a way to climb mountains. She started taking
art classes.
Rivka sighs. “Some of those early pictures
were disturbing. They revealed her pain, but
they were all extraordinary. Earlier in her
life, in school, she’d taken art classes, and the
teacher told her she wasn’t following the rules.
‘But isn’t art a kind of personal expression?’
Malky had asked. Now, we finally saw her feel
free to express herself.”
After 13 months in rehab, Malky was clean,
ready to start again.
She chose to remain in California. She’d
made friends there and become close to local
Chabad shluchim, Rabbi and Mrs. Ilulian.
There were good days, but also hard ones.
Malky rose, but she also fell.
After a year of being clean, she lapsed again.
She was in the hospital after a drug overdose,
her father sitting at her side. His rebbe, the
Krule Rebbe, called to check in. “Take some
coffee and warm it in the microwave, and leave
it on the tray next to her,” the Rebbe advised.
Avreimie was surprised, because Malky
wasn’t awake, and even when she would waken,
she wouldn’t drink the coffee.
The Rebbe explained. “When she opens her
eyes and reaches out, she’ll feel a hot cup of
coffee and she’ll get the message, she’ll feel the
warmth. Tatty is there. Things will be okay.”
There is a video on Rivka’s phone, taken a
few months after that incident. Malky was
back home in Brooklyn and she’d overdosed
again. She was in Maimonides Hospital, and
the Krule Rebbe came to visit.
In the video, Malky looks so vulnerable and
Until that
final moment,
we never felt
like we lost
our daughter.
She was never
anything but
our precious
Malky
weak, but the
respect and
sincerity as she
sees the Rebbe is
evident.
“One Erev Rosh Hashanah,
the Rebbe sent her a package
with apple and honey to California, and on
Purim,” Avreimie recalls, “the Rebbe left her a
message, wishing her a gut yohr. She saved the
voice mail and played it over and over, crying
every time she listened.”
In California, Malky was torn. Brooklyn
was a scary place to her, but she missed her
parents fiercely. She would FaceTime them
several times a day, speaking with her siblings
again and again.
Rivka reaches for the phone to show me
a message in which Malky shares a link to a
song, “Hamalach Hagoel Osi.” This made me
think of you, she writes.
Of her parents. And maybe also of bedtime,
as a child, when everything still seemed possible.
When sweet dreams were still within
reach.
After
the second
stint in rehab,
Malky
was clean
again. She came back to Boro Park, back home.
As in earlier years, Malky bonded with her
parents, late nights on the comfortable living
room couch.
“She cried a lot, about life, about what had
happened to her and to other people.”
It was a strange time. Malky was sick, slipping
into drug use, her addiction filling the
gaping hole inside
her, but even as she
fell deeper into the
abyss, her relationship
with her parents was strong.
“Her emunah was also strong.
She would often speak about how things
don’t happen by chance, and her social media
posts also reflected her faith. I remember,”
Avreimie says, he and his wife exchanging a
long look before he’s able to continue, “I remember
picking her up from Newark on a Friday. It
was late in the day and there was lots of traffic.
She asked me why I didn’t go into the HOV lane,
and I explained to her that in California, two
people are enough to be considered a car pool.
In New York, however, the lane is only open to
three passengers.”
Malky looked at her father. “Tatty, we have
three. Me, you, and Hashem.”
For that beautiful moment, Malky was back.
This past Shavuos, Malky was in California,
joined by the whole family. Her younger sister
moved into her room and watched as Malky
wrote a card to accompany a Yom Tov gift
purchased for her mother.
Malky’s frail shoulders shook with emotion
and she sobbed as she wrote:
Growing up, you were my Mom. Now you’re
my Mom and my best friend. You always want
to make things better for me, even when you
can’t… I treasure every phone call, text, and
conversation we have, treasure our relationship,
and love who you are. You accept and support
every part of me….
A text message to her father carried a similar
message. I just wanna let you know how much
I appreciate your support in everything I do. I
appreciate your acceptance of me staying true
to myself and my beliefs. I notice and remember
everything you do for me constantly, on a daily
basis. I always trust in G-d’s plans for me — there
was no one better or more perfect to be my father
than you. I am so grateful for you. I love you so
much it hurts….
As spring progressed, Avreimie looked
his daughter in the eye. She was seemingly clean
of drugs, but there had been a minor relapse.
“We all know how dangerous this game you’re
playing is, the self-medicating. If something
happens, chas v’shalom, we want you right
here, in our arms.”
After Shavuos, Malkie returned home.
Those final weeks at home were very special.
Even as she basked in the warmth of family,
she was saying goodbye. It was a nightmare
for her parents — they had her close, but she
was slipping away.
“I learned,” says Avreimie with a sigh, “how
readily accessible the most dangerous narcotics
are right here in Boro Park, how simple
it is to obtain them, how there are dealers all
over this neighborhood. We couldn’t do very
much, because to cut off the money would
have forced Malky to come up with money
on her own. We knew we didn’t want that.”
The last Thursday of her life, Malky came
into the kitchen while her mother was baking
challah. She happily joined in, davening as
she took challah. On Friday night, she came
into her parents’ bedroom and lay down. She
cuddled with her mother, like a small child,
and then embraced her father. She was exulting
in the experience of just being close with
them. It was a final gift. A final message, too.
She left after the Shabbos seudah, returning
home near Shalosh Seudos time and sitting
on the porch with her mother, chatting
easily and warmly. Avreimie went to shul for
a shiur, and Rivka prepared to visit a friend.
Before leaving, Rivka went upstairs to say
goodbye to Malky, and saw her daughter
lying in bed. Malky’s skin was blue and she
wasn’t breathing.
Hatzolah came. Avreimie rushed home.
Little Malky was gone.
And this time, there was nothing her
devoted parents could do to make things
right.
The
levayah was Sunday,
and within days
the secular media
was running stories
on heroin addiction in the chassidic
community.
For a brief moment, the all-knowing commenters
were quick to judge: of course, chassidic
parents. Brooklyn. Typical. Certainly,
they’d applied pressure, rejected her, been
too demanding.
And then Malky’s story came out, the
tale of a sweet, proud young girl broken a
hundred times. The social media comments
by Malky’s friends testified to the powerful
bond she had with her family.
“I was in mourning, consumed by my own
pain,” Avreimie says of the shivah. “I didn’t
hear noise from outside. I was waiting for my
own message from the Ribbono shel Olam.”
It came in the form of a routine WhatsApp
video that randomly appeared during the
shivah, a short clip of Rabbi Manis Friedman
speaking about raising successful children.
“The only barometer of success,” Rabbi
Friedman said, “is right versus wrong, not
successful versus failure. If you did the right
thing, you were a successful parent, and if
not, you were a failure.”
It resonated.
“I knew we’d done our best. My wife,
Malky’s siblings, her grandparents, all of
us. The results may not have been the ones
we hoped for. The approach, unconditional
love, acceptance, working to make a child
whole again, has saved so many of these
kids. So many families we know have been
healed. It didn’t work for Malky, but it gave
us a daughter until the end, gave her parents
every step of the way. We know we did the
right thing for her, again and again.”
Malky had been the goal, the endgame,
to so many of her parents’ decisions
over the past 20 years, and now it’s been
pulled away from them.
“We have memories, and we feel grateful.
Not every parent can look back at a loving
relationship. Not every parent gets to see how
special their child is,” Avreimie says, standing
on his front porch, speaking in the slow,
measured tones of someone who is working
valiantly to keep it together. “We looked at
her as a fighter, a champion, not a problem.”
And the attitude they had then gives them
strength now.
“We feel like we want to build, to keep alive
that part of us that Malky woke up. She was
our inspiration and she is our inspiration.”
They’ve invested personal resources, energy,
time and — most precious to them —
Malky’s legacy, into creating something
positive.
Yedidyah is an early-intervention organization
in Eretz Yisrael — but its professionals
aren’t looking for speech defects or strange
movements. They are trained to see the tiny,
imperceptible warning signs of a neshamah
in pain and provide guidance and clarity.
Malky’s parents are bringing the organization
to America.
“Malky had it all,” Avreimie says, looking
past me, somewhere else. “Parents and
siblings who loved her, a great personality,
friends, an appreciation for life. But with all
that, we were powerless to help her.
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t help others.
She couldn’t stand to see people suffering.
It’s what she would want from us.”
The Kleins haven’t withdrawn from the
community of parents united by shared
challenge. “We know. We feel like we can
help others. We’ve been there. We get it. Until
that final moment, we never felt like we
lost our daughter. She was never anything
but our precious Malky.”
I walk back to the car, but Avreimie stands
still. The bright sun plays tricks with the
image of Malky’s father. I can’t see his eyes
anymore, but I can still see his resolve as he
grips the railing, as if we can both hear the
whisper carried by the gentle breeze, Malky’s
enduring message: I notice and remember everything
you do for me constantly, on a daily
basis. I always trust in G-d’s plans for me,
there was no one better or more perfect to be
my father than you. I am so grateful for you. —
56 MISHPACHA
17 Av 5777 | August 9, 2017 MISHPACHA 57