Introduction

Charlene (Shoshannah) was my sun and moon. I related to the physical world through her. I enjoyed life through her. When she was happy I was happy. When she was unhappy I was very unhappy. We were so attached to each other, one might say it was unhealthy, if we weren’t so clearly in love and thriving together.

I thank our Father and King, the Creator, with every breath, for the gift of life that He gives me constantly…but it would be a lie to say that the world is as beautiful and happy a place as it was when Charlene walked it. Certainly for me it has become dark and monochromatic since her passing. 

Somehow however, even without Charlene, I’m just as thankful to the Creator for the gift of my life, which is hard to understand. Until I realized that I would give up everything, all belongings and limbs of my body, for one more breath. The gift of life, breath, is so precious that even without Charlene I’m just as thankful. 

Which is ironic though because the only “thing” I wouldn’t have given up for another breath is Charlene. (Kids and other universal things aren’t included because they don’t “belong” to me to give up). Whereas, I definitely feel that Charlene belonged to me, and she felt I belonged to her. We often held each other and whispered “all mine” or “all yours”, gaining great pleasure and comfort from it.

It’s still very raw. Today I hugged the ground on top of her for a long time because any day now they will pour a thin slab of concrete (to protect from rain until we place the monument). Before that happens, I’m trying to hold on to that physical part of her/us that has been returned to the earth for as long as possible even if it’s only dirt that I’m holding.  

Although as a man of faith, I completely accepted God’s true judgment with love from the moment of Charlene’s passing, I’m still in shock. Not denial, but shock. Charlene was the most alive being I had ever known and her being was central to my existence. Although thinking of her constantly now, I find myself every few minutes “waking up” to the realization that she’s no longer with us. 

My mental map of the world just can’t compute this new reality yet. Of the four axis points, or directions, (spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical) on my mental map, two of those points, the emotional and physical, were fixed on her, and she was a heavy influence on the other two as well. She was so all-encompassingly integral to my life and worldview that computing my new reality has to be done in tiny bite size pieces. 

Everything I do, including the most basic of habitual behaviors, has to be relearned in light of this new reality without those fixed axis points. Even the most mundane things like how I brush my teeth and where I stand in an elevator. When I’m about to do anything that I’ve done hundreds and maybe even thousands of times, I find myself asking myself what would be the best way to handle it. And asking myself  how Charlene would handle it. 

I know how Charlene would handle it. She was fearless, relentlessly positive, and had no self pity. She would say I’m now in a new and different world. A world where I’ve retained all of my knowledge and experience but with no limiting beliefs or habits. Because those limits were just emotional baggage of the old world, not relevant here. I’ve been shaken out of my habitual reality into an entirely different and alternate reality where everything but Charlene’s presence is exactly the same.

She would not be fearful and avoid this new reality by falling into depression and negativity. She would say it’s an opportunity to act and feel limitless. She loved that movie and the idea that people can be so much more when they remove their limiting beliefs.

Which brings me to the purpose of this book. 

I have two paths before me now. 

I can be like Charlene and embrace the best possibilities inherent to the current situation. Using the terrible but immense emotional energy contained in her loss as fuel and motivation to mindfully build an entirely new life from the ground up. 

Or I can take the opposite path, focusing on the enormity of what I’ve lost, feeling self pity, and hopelessness, descending into depression and ultimately losing everything Charlene and I have worked so hard to build over all the wonderful years God gave us together.  

When I focus on the loss, the all-encompassing enormity of it is staggering and insurmountable. 

Charlene was the best thing that ever happened to me. She made life a pleasure and brought me endless happiness. She was larger than life, larger even than movies. She was epically biblical, as our mothers are portrayed in Genesis. Which is appropriate, because as Charlene was a righteous convert, her mother is our Matriarch Sarah. 

And just like her mother Sarah, who the Torah says was the most beautiful woman alive, Charlene was physically stunning, absolute perfection, in both form and appearance, to use the biblical description/euphemism. I can write an entire book describing her physical beauty and poise…but this is not that book. Suffice to say she was often told by many people of all types, men, women, and children, (not only by me), that she was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. And I wholeheartedly agree. 

But also like Sarah, she was just as beautiful on the inside.

Like Sarah, she made everyone around her happy. She radiated a loving energy that caused everyone around her to just be happier. But she also made sure of it. She was very sensitive to the feelings of the people around her and worked to make them feel good about themselves. We know this was a defining trait of Sarah because the Torah says the Shechina (Divine Presence of God) never departed from her tent. And we know the Shechina only rests where there’s happiness. The Shechina rested on Charlene’s tent. 

Like Rebecca, she was the kindest person. She could never say no to an outstretched hand or to a need. And like Rebecca, who watered the camels at 3 years old, this was from an extremely young age. From the age of 8, (yes 8!), she took care of three younger siblings like a mother, full-time outside of school, with love, generosity and consideration, while her parents were both working late hours. To this day her siblings see her as a quasi-mother even though they’re all only a few years apart.

Like Leah, she was fiercely protective and maternal towards her children. She lived for them, and would do anything for them and to protect them. She was very laid back when it came to herself but beware to those that took advantage or hurt one of her kids. They were her treasures and her love for them was infinite and eternal. She wanted to devote herself full-time to nurturing and taking care of them and she made sure from the beginning of our relationship that we had an understanding she would not work when we had children.

Like Rachel, who took her father’s idols, was a shepherdess in a man’s world, and gave over passwords to her sister, Charlene was fearless, accomplished in everything she attempted, and driven, while also being compassionate, hot, interesting, and exciting, a very hard combination to pull off (and in my humble opinion, implicitly true about Rachel as well).

Charlene was especially fearless and accomplished in her equine career, where she was a hunter/jumper for many years and toured on the eastern circuit. When we met she was still training students and riding but no longer competing herself after a few serious accidents. She began competing again later on as a dressage rider, (jumping felt too dangerous to her at that point), after all our kids were in school. She even won a major dressage award at the biggest and most prestigious horse event in the USA, (the Winter Equestrian Festival 2016, Wellington, FL). 

Horses and riding were her passion and a very important part of who she was. It was what she loved doing most. And I loved being around her at the barn, where she was in her natural element. Watching her ride made my heart sing, and I took great pride and pleasure in helping make it happen for her and us. We found a way to integrate her riding into our shared dream of moving to Israel and her horse, Canaan, made Aliya with us. In fact, the reason we moved to Raanana nine years ago was because it was right next door to Batsra, where the only trainer in Israel capable of training at Charlene’s level had his barn.

Many mornings since moving to Israel I would drive out to the barn in Batsra to watch her ride and pray the morning prayer in the orange groves next to the arena. Charlene’s earliest and happiest childhood riding memories which she had vividly described to me were of her riding with her sister through the orange groves in her native Orlando Florida. Being able to pray to our Creator from a place of such happiness, peace and contentment, and in the holy land not in exile, was an ecstatic spiritual pleasure.  

Also like Rachel, in relation to her husband, Yaakov, Charlene to me was my soulmate partner in the journey to build our envisioned life together, “who died on me while on the road”, before we reached our destination. 

She was my soulmate in every sense of the word. We were so spiritually resonant, we shared our dream. Her dreams and my dreams merged into one bigger and richer dream that we dreamed together. And focused on building together. And loved to talk about during quiet times. Like the property she found for us to build a house and mini farm/large garden on in Batsra. She had her eye on it and as soon as my business would generate enough money for us to afford it (which she was convinced was happening any day) she was ready to move forward. 

She was the Woman of Valor (Aishet Chayil) that King Solomon was dreaming of when he described her in Proverbs. She was the light of my world. She was one of a kind and irreplaceable. 

This is what I lost.

Losing her feels like half of me has been torn away. And not a clear half with boundaries either. I don’t know where I end and she begins. She and I both took God’s command to Adam in Genesis to cleave to his wife and become one literally. We worked to integrate our actions and feelings and thoughts and dreams to be as one unified creation for the glory of our Father and Creator.  

As we grew together in this way, our physically intimate moments became more and more sublime and holy. As we experienced this deep connection with each other on so many levels simultaneously, it connected us intensely with the universe and our Creator as well, because these levels of connection are also a ladder and path to connect with God. And the more levels are connected the closer one gets to the Creator. 

At these times I felt like I was dwelling in the Garden of Shoshannah, my Garden of Eden. Where everything is connected and whole and at peace and one with God and His creation.

When we ripped kriya on our clothing, I felt like I was being torn away from the beautiful, walled Garden of Shoshannah and thrown back into the jungle. I felt my body being torn in two, my heart, my soul, my world itself. 

When I felt my world tearing in two, a very strong affinity and alignment with God overwhelmed me. Because I realized that this is how God Himself feels since the Shechina has been in exile with the destruction of the Temple. And while I felt sorry for God I didn’t really understand how He can do this to Himself, the pain is unbearable. If I was God there was no way I would voluntarily feel like this for 2,000 years.

And then I further realized that God is trapped in and with us. As the People of His Book whose narrative contains a middle, exile, and an end, Messianic redemption, God is forced to play out existence through and with us. In poker terminology He’s pot committed. God cannot reunite with His Shechina because He’s waiting for us to make it happen.

I was determined to find my way back to the Garden of Shoshannah, to become one again with my soulmate Charlene, and with Creation. And through this journey, to help reunite God with His Shechina and bring the Messiah. (Which in a Godly irony, would actually bring my beautiful soulmate Charlene back to me with Techiyat Hameitim, a major tenet of our faith). 

I intuitively understood the path I had to travel to accomplish this. Until now, Charlene’s soul and spirit was housed in her physical body, albeit inhabiting my world as if housed in my own. Now, her soul and spirit will inhabit my world by being housed in my physical body. I would do this by integrating her soul and spirit into my being and my world.

I would break down Charlene’s character traits and values, her spirit and soul essence, her physical, mental and emotional strengths, and work to integrate them into my makeup, my thinking, my actions, and my daily life. This would be an enormous amount of work but nobody ever said finding one’s way back to the Garden and helping to bring the Messiah was going to be easy.

The Garden of Shoshannah will be the journal of my efforts, and I hope and pray my journey back to the Garden helps many find their own way back.

Like my beloved Charlene, I have chosen the path of the Tree of Life. To embrace the best possibilities inherent to my current situation. Using the terrible but immense emotional energy contained in her loss as fuel and motivation to mindfully build an entirely new life from the ground up.

We believe the way to uplift a soul in heaven is by physically working in our world for that soul’s purpose or benefit. I therefore also hereby pledge for this year until and including Charlene’s first yahrtzeit to dedicate all of my good deeds and accomplishments, and all of my effort and activity, in all matters, for the equal benefit of her soul as for my own. It is the least I can do for my soulmate and partner, who helped me build who I am and our life together, which she and I both treasured and guarded, as the Garden deserves to be. 

May the holy and beautiful Neshama of Shoshannah bat Avraham Ve’Sarah be uplifted through this labor of love, and the benefit that it brings to people and the world.    

I love you baby.