Mishpacha - always my malky

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