Christian, A Good Samaritan Saved Me, Alone

Farsi Fairy Tales begin with, “Yekee Bood Yekee Nabood, Gheyrahz Khoda Heech Kas Nabood.” 

This translates as, “There was one, there was no one. Other than God, there was no one.”  My fairy tale begins there because I believe it evokes what may be described in English as  “faith” or “footsteps” or “emouna” in Hebrew. It also evokes some of my sense of loneliness through childhood. 

My illness is epilepsy.  My wellness is God’s grace, my good health, my breakthroughs of understanding, compassion, past stigma and intergenerational traumas which enables and empowers me to share this  story and bear witness.

Epilepsy is not uncommon; nor is it contagious.  1% of the US population, 3.4 million people,  have epilepsy.  Mine is rather manageable, now.  I need regular sleep and hydration and a daily dose of medication daily.  I do have headaches,  dizziness, and auras.  Epileptic seizures are most frequently  triggered by  lack of rest, lack of hydration, and stress.  For me to be able to state the foregoing directly,  and clearly is part of my wellness journey, as well as others’.  So, I write. 

Like others in the hidden ranks of sleep-deprived, anxious, meritocrats in the ranks of uncredited cryptocracy known as “Women,” “Matriarchs” “Sheer-zan,” or “Lioness” each of lack of rest and stress were, and remain, my go-to adrenalin and my cheat. I am a lifelong overachiever, anxiously straddling multiple spheres my entire life: As the precocious,  capable, gracious,  first-born daughter of young, striving immigrants in a tumultuous, multigenerational household, and, as the granddaughter of learned and prominent Persian Jews on both sides of my family, connected to a large web of aunts, uncles, and cousins.  

When I was little, as an only child for nearly a decade, then as an older sister, a high-achieving student, a state and nationally ranked debater,  a commuter to a women’s college and to law school, I was, also, expected to conform to old-world expectations of chastity and patriarchy attendant to 19th century mores of Persian Jews — all while doing chores around the house. Groomed early to people-please, I dutifully obliged. 

I was a Persian Jewish Cinderella, of sorts. Sleep deprived, I somehow made Law Review, married my prince, landed a high-profile job in a top-tier NYC law firm, quit, and had four beautiful children in five years, thank God.  I took on various volunteer roles in the secular and Jewish community, and continued to take on more and more responsibilities. I slept very little and prided myself on self-abnegation like all the adult role models I had observed around me growing up.

You may wonder why I am writing about myself in the third person past tense:  I only learned of my epilepsy diagnosis at the age of 52. I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was found unconscious in the street near my home following a Grand Mal epileptic seizure.  

I was saved by a God and a Christian Good Samaritan who was walking by.  He literally ran over to break my fall so that my head did not hit the pavement, and got me to the hospital.  I remember his tattooed arms and his hands cradling my head,  and his voice asking for my phone number before I fell unconscious. I  later learned that people walking by that day included a distant relative,  who saw my weird gait, and my mouth frothing, consistent with the diagnosis.

That day was, also, Shabbat Rosh Chodesh Elul, a day of heightened spiritual expectation and joy, generally, for Jews, just one month before Tishrei and Rosh Hashanah.  I had had specific touch points in my life and family history referring to Rosh Chodesh Elul. I was psyched about it.  That hot summer day, I was recovering from a second bout of COVID the week before. Three weeks before our eldest daughter had married  the love of her life. Our son had just moved out to his first apartment. Our youngest had just left for a semester abroad.  I had just signed a lease to move my law practice to a larger space. I was president of the board of education of the number one district in the entire state.  It looked at the time as though the pandemic and assorted controversies were finally in the rear view mirror. 

A Grand Mal Seizure brought everything to a grinding halt.   

I awoke hours later in the hospital with a gaggle of family around me, all insisting and hoping  that I had just “fallen,” that the doctor was wrong, that I must have just been tired or overheated or dehydrated.  I learned that one of my children, herself  traumatized by the Covid pandemic, had ridden in the ambulance with me  while I was unconscious.

I was blessed not to be alone. I am beyond fortunate to have a caring and loving multigenerational family. Be that as it may, the very people who love and rely on me the most were, also, negating the neurologist and epileptologist standing in front the hospital bed trying to give me  the critical information I needed to hear regarding what happened to shut my brain off. The neurologist said that the brain scans clearly showed multiple seizures for many years. They were shocked I was unaware of the epilepsy before. 

I was not permitted to drive for six months. During those months,  I also experienced ischial rage,  auras, and mini seizures. I went into therapy.  I stopped permitting family near my neurology appointments. I began to recall prior seizures and auras from when I was little.  I simply had not known what they were. Like so much else that happened to me as a child, I had just ignored and pushed through, invalidating  myself, just as I had seen the  adults around me do in the name of family strength, avoiding flaws, stigma.

When the six months were up I  was blessed to return to Israel, in fulfillment of  a neder, a vow. It was my first-ever trip in my life alone.  I spent a week at praying, singing and hanging out with a sea of humanity and voices from around the world and religions at the kotel, in hostels, at the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea, in Tel Aviv. 

When I returned from Israel, I tried to put myself first, which is not easy. It remains very challenging.  I decided to prioritize my sleep and my rest, to continue to allow my own learning, and as well, support my spouse and children, parents, siblings,  and extended community. It begins with me first, for the first time in my life, though. I had never allowed myself these.  

I performed mitzvot of tzedeakah, chesed, and aliyot to the  Torah and including gomel, one after I came home from the hospital, and another when I returned from Israel.   I was very emotional during each. I decided I had nothing to hide. I had not embarrassed, I have not done anything wrong and was not contagious.  There was some ignorant gossip; I did not heed it: stigma and shame kill.  As one who represents students with disabilities in my law practice,  and one who believes in the power of communal  prayer I wanted to be in community to recite the blessings of healing and gratitude. I needed to  hear and experience the congregational responses of grace.  When people asked me why I recited gomel or why I was emotional, I replied matter-of-factly and gratefully.  Looking back, I am so glad I did.

I have spent most of my adult life finding ways to artfully dodge stigma, finding workarounds against stigma within the patriarchal systems of Judaism,  Persian and American culture and jurisprudence, including against women with higher education, and  women leading tefilla, and women who are multi-vocal in general leadership, actually.  We need to show up for ourselves.  Nearly losing my life and being saved taught me to begin with me.

Thus, in its own way, an illness story has become a wellness story.

I identify strongly with the Matriarchs of the Torah. Sarah who was passed off by her spouse to other men may have had STDs, which could explain  her barrenness.  I am inspired by Sarah’s laughter when she learned of her pregnancy. I wonder what stories she and the text would tell if they were recorded.

So, too, I wonder about Rachel, whom was loved by Jacob whilst she watched her beloved husband, also, marry her sister Leah. What would she say, if her story was recorded? And Leah, who was not necessarily loved, or could she see well,  but who named her many sons to tell her story. She too, would have much to say, no doubt.  

My namesake, Rebecca, is actually a decision-maker and a prophet insofar as she struggles and argues with God, while her twins struggle within her. What a woman! She is dogged and  fierce, protective of her children, and, like the other prophets, she argues with God.  Yes, she is a strong wife and partner for Isaac. 

Like her,  my prayer for all God’s children, my own, my family, my clients,’ all,  is always for each to know we are enough, deserving of rest and hydration, that we are each whole.  We are made betzelem elohim, in God’s image. We must allow ourselves to be ourselves,  not a facsimile of someone else, fully and completely, in wholeness and shalem without shame or stigmas and to make informed choices educated for ourselves, in light of God. Amen.

Thirteen months to the day after the Grand Mal Seizure that could have killed me but-for God, the Good Samaritan, and the epilepsy diagnosis which forced me to recalibrate healthy boundaries to myself,  and my commitments,   I was blessed to have my family over for erev Rosh Hashanah. 

We had a houseful of guests, so I had hired two young men from the nearby Merchant Marine Academy to help with the dishes. One of the young men kept saying to me, and I to him,  “you seem familiar.” Two hours into the evening, standing by my kitchen sink, I nearly fainted with awe when this Malach angel  from Hashem said to me “you were my first call. I rode in the ambulance with you and your daughter.”  His name was, ”Christian.”  

I shook, hugged, and wept with Christian in our kitchen on Rosh Hashanah. 

We never know what and whom we don’t know. God knows. 

 Adonai lee v lo eera “God is with me; I am not afraid.”  I was never alone.

As my Father, God bless him 120 years, is fond of repeating, “Khodeto Negar Dar, Khoda Negar Dar” which means, “hold yourself, and hold God.”  

As my grandmothers, z”l, and my, Mom, God bless her 120 years begins every story, “Yekee Bood, Yekkee Nabood, Gheyraz Khoda Heech Kas Nabood.”

RYS

3/7/25