Dear Lauren

I started writing this blog for a few reasons. One of those reasons was my dear friend, Lauren, who is no longer with us. She was the first 'follower' of this blog.

I started writing this 10 months ago after we got back in touch. Although we grew up together in Morristown, through elementary school, middle school, and high school, we hadn't corresponded in years. This was my fault- I had been living as a student in Israel for a few years, with intermittent email/internet/international phone access. Most of my friends from home (especially high-school friends) didn't hear from me on a regular basis.

 I realized that there were so many things to catch her up on-

 why and how I chose to live in Israel- Jerusalem, no less...

why I was going by Shoshana when she'd always known me as Susan...

who I had married and how that had happened...

my baby that I was still expecting at the time..

                             basically, what had transpired in my life in the last few years. It was clear to her that a lot had changed, and I wanted to fill in the gaps. So I started writing. Then I realized that there were many friends and relatives I wanted to do this for. And so I started writing for those people, too. But everyone knows that when you write (same as acting), you need to be speaking to someone specific. Your narrative has to have a clear audience. I always think of it in these terms: in order to reach everyone, speak to SOMEone. So as I wrote my first entries, I decided:

 I am speaking to Lauren.  

This year, towards the end of my pregnancy, the week I started recording my album, Lauren passed away. Suddenly and tragically. To the heartbreak of our entire community. And we are all still in the aftershock. It was, and is, difficult. 

Lauren was always a beam of light. And the only thing that I can guess about why G-d chose to take her and not another, is that she really had outstanding character traits. Generosity, humility, gratitude, poise, intelligence, true inner (and outer- although that's not a character trait) beauty...I could go on. 

How could G-d take someone like Lauren? We won't get the full answer while we are still in this world, but I heard once from Rabbi Chalkowski that G-d sometimes takes, specifically, the righteous people. The purpose of this world is to give us opportunities to perfect ourselves and help us to grow into who we are in potential. If someone is righteous and has already achieved their inner goals, they don't need to be here anymore. So they are taken to the next world to receive their reward. But the rest of us still need to be here, we need every minute here, to reach our inner goals. And G-d, by taking just one outstanding person, forces hundreds of us regular people to vividly remember her strengths, learn from them, and become more like her in some small way.

I always knew she was special, but like everyone else, I would never have sat and thought and cried and conjured up all my memories of her, without this tragic event's occurrence. We're so busy, so occupied, that we don't appreciate people like that on a normal basis, to the degree that they deserve. 

We needed a wake-up call. 

In Lauren's memory, we slowly become better. And she would have wanted that. And now that she is in a place of true clarity, of only clarity, she can see the true impact that she has made on us, in her life and in her passing. 

donate to Lauren's foundation here:

http://www.laurenfoundation.com/