My sister was having phone sex in the middle of the night. She was 11 years old. Ma and Pa were in the next room, sleeping. It was windy outside, nearly winter. My bedroom curtain moved gently, back and forth. Back and forth. I watched and I listened. I could hear my sister’s moans through the bathroom door.
The doctors said she had bipolar. Hypersexuality was a symptom of that. I was 9 or 10 and didn’t care why she was doing what she was doing. I just needed her to stop. Every time my dad would catch her with a phone, he’d check the call log. Then, he’d beat her up.
She always got a new phone.
I didn’t want my dad to catch her this time. It was too scary. His belt left marks on her for days. I needed to stop her before he found the phone again.
If I’d tell my sister this, she would say I was making things up. I was hearing things. She’d tell me that going to the bathroom for 6 hours every day was normal. Her stomach hurt. She wouldn’t admit to having a phone. I had to tell her that I knew so I convince her to stop. I had to prove I wasn’t making things up.
There was a notebook hidden between my pillow and pillowcase. I hid non-Jewish books there too. I changed my own sheets, so no one really looked there. I took the notebook and opened it to the last entry. At the top left, I titled a line “Problem”. Underneath, the next line said “Suggested Possible Solution”, or sometimes “SPS” for short. I started to write.
This was my notebook of messages to God.
My teachers and parents told me that God had better solutions than I could think of. God knows everything, right? But I worried. Maybe He was too grand for small things. Maybe He wouldn’t think of the ideas I had. There was always a chance. To correct this, I’d write all my problems down and guide Him with 5 or 6 Suggested Possible Solutions.
It was my way of supporting the heavenly procedures.
Unfortunately for me, (or maybe, unfortunately for God), it didn’t work. I was creative. When I gave God SPS for the phone issue, my mind went places I’m still impressed by. I crafted a plan to earn $20 or $30, buy a nanny cam, set it up in the bathroom, and then confront my sister with the footage. This was all just to stop her from masturbating so my dad would stop beating her up. I really needed her to stop.
Like most events in my childhood, the situation took years to change. In this case, she got put into foster care. She probably had 7-14 phones in a few years. Every time my dad caught her, she bled. And then she’d get another phone.
Some nights, I lay in bed and get lost in those memories. They don’t hurt so much. They’ve made me. The question of God often rolls around in my head. I used to really believe. I’d talk to God daily. I’d ask him with my heart and soul to change things. I didn’t need much, I just couldn’t handle my sister’s pain. I couldn’t handle my dad’s anger. And God was supposed to listen.
Kids teach us a lot about life. If there’s one thing my inner child left me with, is that God doesn’t have time to listen to my prayers.
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I remember reading a rabbi who wrote that it doesn’t require the Holocaust to force us to wonder how God can permit intolerable evil and tragedy in this world, one child dying of leukemia is enough to force us to ask that question.
Your post is another excellent example. I only hope and pray your sister has emerged stronger and more fully realized as an individual from her ordeal. Despite your own suffering you are certainly a remarkable person, and one day you may see that your sufferings forged you into the extraordinary person you are becoming.
It’s a very special, although daunting, privilege to confront mystery.
This is amazing. I raced through it. I held my breath. Absolutely flawless.