Bio-Grandmotherhood-T

Biographical Sculptures
GRAND MOTHER HOOD

Tomer
The
Beginnings

Training for Wrestling with
Tomer

My
Wrestling
with Tomer

Tomer's Loves

Tomer & Titorah

Tomer
Towards Completion?

WRESTLING with Tomer

On April 2, 2011, I came across a clipping which noted,
that "in the evening after Tomer's Brith Immanuel let us hear Achinoam's Ave Maria".
After a long search for the photos and a correspondence with Immanuel,
they were sent - in digital format - by his ex-wife Ruth, Tomer's mother.

Tomer's Brith, November 1994,
The only son or grandson,
which I had the priviledge to hold in my arms while being photographed.
There is no such document of the circumcisions of Jonathan, Alon and Itamar.
And to my everlasting regret - at Arnon's brith I wasn't present.
When I heard of his birth on June 12, 1996, I asked his parents on the phone,
if they preferred me to come right away, or to join the celebration of the Brith.
I felt, that I couldn't bear the immense physical strain of hitchhiking twice.
They preferred: "rightaway", and it took me 6 hours to reach Jerusalem.
But when I heard, that his grandfather, my ex-husband had not appeared either,
though at that time he was in Israel for a few weeks, I felt extremely sorry.
After all, we were Arnon's only grandparents. His mother's parents were dead.

See more images of Tomer's Brith

An example of how Tomer and I worked through a crisis,
can be felt in "Communication with Deity 2003_02_16"
Scroll down in "Training" and see [left frame] an insight on "Febr. 18, 2011"

2002_11_13; last update: 2003_05_31

Today, the last day before Christmas, I want to work on the sculpture of this page one more time.
I have come to understand, that I now must "cease to manifest" new sculptures on my website,
and it's symbolic, that my computer will be taken away for repair until the beginning of 2003.

My life, i.e. my learning, loving, healing and creating is now focused on one relationship:
the relationship between grandmother and grandson.
It is symbolic, that today's newspage unwittingly contrasts the final act before the W A R
- the preparation of the United Nations for pulling out their weapon inspectors from Iraq -
with an info, that a 16 year old boy in Israel was arrested for abusing his small siblings.

I see the world going to pieces
and I dedicate myself with all my heart
to the mutual healing
between grandmother and grandson.

"Whoever keeps alive one soul,
is as if s/he is keeping alive a whole world."

is a central principle in Judaism
and often quoted and even applied in modern Israel.
It is the same as the vocation for each of us,
According to Deity's message in Godchannel:

"I'm totally committed to heal myself into wholeness,
and - by extension - all of creation."

From
Finding the Will to Heal [updates discovered on 2005_08_29]

"When your conscious intention
and your free Will
[in the old version "your free Will" was missing!]
is purely dedicated
to healing into wholeness,
and nothing else matters more to you,
you are ready to take responsibility for
[ old version: you are ready to begin the work of ]
healing yourself and all of Creation.
When you are relying entirely on your Will
and her mate, loving Light,
[in the old version "mate," was missing!]
for inner guidance
and no longer planning a future
or believing what your imprints and conditioning have been telling you
[old version: or listening to your imprints and conditioning]
about what you must do and what you must protect yourself against ~
you are doing the work."

The realization of the crazy fantasy,
which was the subject of my last communication with the Mother,
started to happen much earlier than I thought, i.e. two weeks later!
YET!
Not black children from broken families will be fostered by me,
but my own grandchild - T - from my own broken family.

His fast deteriorating "behavior" at school caused fright
- at Modi'in in Israel, where his mother and siblings live,
and in Detroit, USA, to where his father moved for a year.

Many coincidences and some angels along the way
helped to fast mature me towards my new vocation.

".... It was then, that I heard the Mother saying through Ronnit:
"I know only one person, who could raise Tomer,
and that is you.
Let go of your Ethiopian kids and raise your own grandchild."

I felt struck by a lightening.
I asked more and Ronnit said more
and then she told me to lift the idea to a "cosmic" level."

"...Later Orit made me let go of my last stubbornness.
She made me understand, how wrong my idea was,
that Tomer should move to the school across my flat.

"Kids hate changes in their environment, even if it's bad.
And what will you do, if his behavior doesn't improve?
If they'll say to him: 'You got a chance for a new start, Tomer,
and see, how you fail again!' where will grandma turn then?"

During all this time I matured myself,
by moving my experiences and feelings
and sculpting my understandings, concept and plan in words.
Most of it must now be eliminated from this page,
for a flower prepares its growth in the darkness of the earth,
and so does the embryo - hidden from the eyes of the world.

In entering the wrestle face-to-face between T and me,
I needed to learn to distinguish between T himself,
and T in the context of his family or classmates.
A first chance for this was the birthday party,
which his brother AL wanted to arrange in my flat.

Quotes from an entry on 2002_11_20; last update: 2002_12_23

"The coincidences continued the next day.
I became confident, that I could relinquish all control.

"The feelings I had to cope with at night and in the morning are at peace now,
while AL's party with 12 kids his age plus T and his friend Daniel is at its peak.

"I was even successful in mediating between AL and his cousin/friend Jonathan.

"Alon had projected on Jonathan, that he would feel uncomfortable with kids he didn't know,
and therefore had not invited him, a fact which Jonathan interpreted as being unwanted.
Like most people Alon preferred to ignore his friend instead of communicating his fear.

"Alon was ready to call Jonathan, provided I would facilitate their communication.
I knew, that parties were not for Jonathan, like they are not for me.
But it strengthened the friendship, that he came and held on for 2 hours, before he left.

Tomer and Alon [the latter in a painfully symbolic attitude] photographed by one of the 12 kids at the party

"When the nine kids who had stayed over night had left,
Tomer felt deserted and "imprisoned" at grandma's.
He screamed, kicked and cried for more than an hour,
~~~healing himself with heavy movement of emotions.
I listened, touched him, massaged him, when he let me,
sometimes comforted him, sometimes expressed anger,
and when he was done, a beautiful togetherness unfolded,
with its highlight - an adventurous hike on my Modi'in Hill,
with discoveries that occur only when Tomer is with me.

This is a detail from a photo of Tomer's,
a sabra cactus, so similar to him:
Their fruits are so fresh and tasty,
but I have yet to acquire the skill,
to pick them and peel off their skin,
protected
by millions of tiny vicious thorns.

"Since that Shabbat
and my hours at the Mother's place,
my Salt Sea Springs,
the next day,

my idea evolved towards something realistic:
My proposal of being a partial foster grandma,
without the status or legitimation of this term,
i.e. without hurting the parents' ego,
has been accepted.

2002_12_23
In a now eliminated letter to the psychologist
I had carefully sculpted the concept
of my new "arena" for mutual healing.

I am as grateful for the ideas
I had to let go of as unrealistic,
as I am grateful for the ideas
that are already being realized.

DRAWING THE LINE between Tomer and Alon

Tomer is part of a smaller and wider family,

as symbolized
on this photo
shot on Dec. 14,
the first weekend,
which
Tomer and Alon
spent with me
According
to my proposal,
that every
second weekend
they would
be with me,
as long as
their father
is abroad .

Micha's kids,
Arnon [yellow]
and Ayelet
were also with us,
and on Shabbat we went twice
to the
Sidra Tree

[Alon did n o t
want to come].

To see Tomer as a separate person, responsible for his choices is one thing.
But the actors whom he has chosen for this life - are actors in my life too,
and though I had to learn to let go of caring also for AL,
I cannot and will not let go of carrying AL in my heart.

2002_12_21; last update: 2002_12_23

I can hardly grasp the process I went through between October 24 and today, December 21.
All of a sudden I was thrown again into a roller coaster and getting off from it , is not in sight.

One of the angels who appeared at the junctions of the first steep windings of my new roller coaster,
was Levi, the kid, whom I had "fostered" from first to last grade. When I called him on his 40th birthday and told him about T, he - the very busy, internationally renowned dance teacher for special education, came, played with T and suggested to invite T's 27 classmates for a birthday party with him, Levi Bar-Gil.

But during the last days I reached the feeling of competence:
I'll be able to cope with the challenge grandmother-grandson,
with its enormous potential of triggers, i.e. chances for healing.

In addition to that, I was led to draw the line between T
and his not less endangered, not less suffering, elder brother,
i.e. to limit the "challenge" to what I believe I can "handle",
and to not deny, but bear&move the pain of being so limited.

Despite extraordinary "interruptions",
like the days when his father was here,
and all the tests-for-Ritalin took place,
or like T's birthday party with my foster-son Levi Bar-Gil ,
and its hideously triggering aftermath,
I managed to establish a certain healthy routine:
I meet T in his classroom at the end of school,
receive the teacher's report, praises or warnings,
and walk with him to the swimming pool - 15 minutes.
Walking together allows for silence, if he feels like it,
or for chatting, or even for meaningful communication.
In the pool I lend myself to strenuous fierce funny fighting,
which is also the only chance for body contact between us,
and for applying "Watsu" in a form, that this kid can accept.
Then we walk up to my Sidra Tree on the Titora, or Modi'in hill,
with more organic communication on the way,
and have our sweet ritual of a simple picnic under the tree.
There - and later on my self-created path back to my home -
T skips and sings and watches the little marvels of nature.
The last part of the routine - 15 minutes of homework -
still meets with incredible resistance, but will soon be accepted~

Looking back at this intense process,
I feel deeply grateful for the way,
the new assignment was "channeled" to me:

My daughter, Ronnit Shai, herself a mother of four, a nurse,
and at present the director of a Station for Mother and Child,
was the midwife of my process towards taking care of T.

My daughter and her daughter,
my son and his son
about ten weeks later,
at my son's 40th birthday.

Especially decisive was her response
to my attitude of "everything or nothing":
I had expressed my anger about an idea,
faintly voiced by T's mother,
that I should act as a "noon-school" for T
and that his father, my son, should pay me for this,
just like he was paying for the present noon-school..

I wrote, this would be nothing more than a "fig-leaf".
Underneath the situation might deteriorate unnoticed.

On the other hand, I remember Franz Rosenzweig saying:
'To want everything or nothing,
always means to get nothing.'

To this my daughter responded:
"You should listen to grandfather!"

And when I followed her advice
and came forward with the proposal
of this extremely limited status
of a partial foster grandmother,
and expressed my self-pity, that I would have the problems,
while the credit for their solution would all go to the mother,
she wrote the following letter- like a poem - on Nov. 18, 2002:

"My beloved mother,
The only question that needs to be asked is:
'will this contribute to my own healing?'"

And regarding my need to be appreciated for what I do "for" T,
she reminds me,
that the need for appreciation can anyway only be fulfilled by myself.

She closes:
"Are you UP TO IT?
FOR THE TEST IS GREAT AND GIGANTIC LIKE NO OTHER."

And so I and T started to jump into the water,
and we do so literally every day after school,
before walking up to the Sidra Tree for our lunch.

Now, I don't have a problem anymore with being appreciated.
I am not doing anything "for" Tomer!
Tomer and I, I and Tomer, have chosen each other for healing.

But my old "grandmother pain" has an even sharper sting now:

My children-parents and their kids balance any strain between them by moments of "putzi-mutzi".
Tomer can cause his mother incredible pain and shame, but soon enough they will hug and kiss.
I do not get any "putzi-mutzi" from Tomer so far,
and if it weren't for the warmth from Arnon, and a little bit from Itamar and Yael,
there would not be any physical intimacy in my life now.

So sometimes, after rough hours with Tomer, I pity myself:
"Rachel gets the shit and Ruth gets the kiss".

But this pain too is something to be healed, isn't it?

2003_02_27
For a glimpse into my wrestling with Tomer and myself since then,
see Communication with Deity, and Biblical Sculptures>"Jacob wrestling with himself"

Puzzle Piece 48b - FEAR - 2003_03_13-16

Tomer
The
Beginnings

Training for Wrestling with Tomer

My
Wrestling
with Tomer

Tomer's Loves

Tomer & Titorah

Tomer
Towards Completion?

2013

Tomer - on Facebook - sent this video about the artist Alex Grey and his wife Alison
"My mission is to bring the opposites together , that's why I changed my name into Grey"
[another way to get to this link]