It is the same choice for all of us. In Tel Aviv or in La Cañada. After the Twin Towers. At a mine disaster.
Last month, I met a 95-year-old man. When I learned that he was a Holocaust survivor, I asked him, "How do you manage to live in the world?" The gentleman tapped his finger on the table, I think he did it for emphasis, and shouted, "Faith!"
Everyone finds their own answers, but when a public figure, like Ariel Sharon, faces bereavement, I always want to know, "Where does he get his strength?"
Ariel Sharon made the choice to live fully. He remarried. He fathered children. He became the doting grandfather.
He was known to be tough. Tough on the enemy. A strong opponent at home. "Even the sheep are afraid of me," he once said.
He was also a charismatic leader. For years, Sharon opposed the formation of a Palestinian state and supported the expansion of Jewish settlements in the former Palestinian territories.
Not everyone agreed with him.
In 1999, the third tragedy struck. Sharon's second wife, Lily, came down with cancer. Through the short months of her treatment, she encouraged her husband to continue with his work. When her condition worsened, he stayed with her in the hospital. Just like folks in cancer wards all over the country. All over the world.
At night, he slept a chair by her bed. In the morning, he would go to work, like she wanted. No different than other patients' wives or husbands, at Norris, at City of Hope, at UCLA.
One night, while they were at the hospital, Lily and Ariel's house burned down.
When Lily Sharon died on March 25, 2000, Ariel Sharon was again faced with the impossible pain of bereavement.
The bereaved live differently in the world. There are more choices. The choice to live or not to live. Choices about how to live. It is not surprising that Ariel Sharon began to envision another solution.
