Mishpacha - always my malky

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