Weekly Story: My Mother
This Sunday is the 36th yahrzeit of my mother Mrs. Cheyena Avtzon. I am sharing a letter one of her friends sent us shortly after her petira. Your feedback is always appreciated.
Cheyena Karasik and I were born in the city of Nevel. We were friends from an early age. At school, Cheyena was always at the top of the class. When I was ten I moved from Nevel to Moscow.
Years later, in 1948, Cheyena and I were reunited at a Chabad community hotel in Paris. I will never forget the warmth and compassion she greeted me with when we met. I had arrived at the hotel late at night with my husband and two infant children. We were without a penny and nothing to eat. My babies were crying.
Imagine my feelings when I heard a knock on the door of the tiny storage room we were in and in walked my childhood friend Cheyena with a steaming pot of rice soup with meat. As long as I live, I will not forget the look of compassion and understanding on Cheyena’s face that night.
Our renewed friendship was based on our love for each other’s families, companionship, and on understanding and sharing. The summer of 1949 in Paris was impossibly hot. Our families were crammed together in tiny rooms and we were afraid for the health of our children. For the summer, Cheyena and I decided to move with our families to the suburbs of Paris where dozens of Chabad familes lived in what was once a Summer Estate.
We found a small storage room on the roof of the building and we all moved in. We cooked our suppers together and even fed our children from one plate. Cheyena and I had many intimate conversations together. She told me about the passing of her mother and her brother and about how she made sure that they were given a Jewish burial.
My English vocabulary is too poor to mention all the details. One thing that I must mention is how she slept in the cemetery on the burial plots that had been allotted to her mother and sister so that they would not be stolen by others who were also in desperate need of a plot for their loved ones. Exposed for so long in the bitter cold in the cemetery, Cheyena lost some of her teeth.
In our discussions, we shared with each other the many tragic events that we had both gone through since the time when we had been friends as children in Nevel. After the Leningrad Blockade was over, her father, Reb Leibel Karasik and his remaining family moved to Central Asia. But tragedy followed them still. Cheyena lost her father and buried him.
Only a person who had such a strong emunah as Cheyena could survive the tragedy of Leningrad and the hardships she experienced in Central Asia.
Cheyena arrived in the United States with her husband, Reb Meir Avtzon, and a large family. Despite her extreme state of tiredness and later on, her physically weak state, she always had an open home filled with guests. The last time I met Cheyena was in New York. Our friendship never wavered. Her untimely passing deeply wounded my heart. Cheyena and her husband left behind a treasure house of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that brighten up the world around them in gashmius and ruchnius. She left generations that go in the way that she and her husband wanted. Generations who bring much nachas and pride.
For me, Cheyena will forever be the highest example of a compassionate, loving and understanding woman, who shared her companionship with all. Although Cheyena may not be with us physically, in spirit and in good deeds she is with us forever.
R. G.
Rabbi Avtzon is a veteran mechanech and the author of numerous books on the Rebbeim and their chassidim. He can be contacted at avtzonbooks@gmail.com
