When Surrender Is Strength: A Mother’s Journey with Her Son’s Disability

When Yael Kabessa gave birth to her firstborn son, Yehonatan, she never imagined he would completely turn her life upside down. Although the pregnancy went smoothly, Yehonatan’s birth was difficult and complicated. “He experienced respiratory distress which ultimately caused irreversible damage,” she explains in an interview with Hidabroot.

Kabessa posted a message on social media that deeply moved many, because of the power and strength it conveyed from a place of apparent weakness.

“There are all kinds of personality types,” Kabessa begins. “I’m the fighting type: I approach everything like a battle- it must be conquered, defeated, subdued. Every difficulty is a puzzle to be cracked. I have a vision, and now I just need to explain to reality- by any means necessary- why it should, or rather must, align with my logic. That’s my drive, that’s what propels me forward. It’s built into me, it's who I am.”

“When Yehonatan was born and we learned the extent of his injury, this mindset guided my entire approach to him: We would fight, strive, and ultimately defeat this impairment. We would conquer the illness. We would erase the injury as if it never happened! We would become one of those inspirational stories people tell and make movies about- how a child so severely injured at birth ended up in an elite IDF unit! I was carried away by success stories people shared to comfort us, and I charged ahead, blindly: This child will recover!”

“Luckily, I was blessed with a partner who is my opposite. He engages in a much gentler dialogue with reality- so gentle that from my combative viewpoint, his approach often seemed passive.
In those early years when I was fully enlisted in the battle for rehabilitation, I would plead with him: Let’s fight! Let’s reach the moon! Let’s turn the world upside down! Let’s erase the life we had or could have had and make this child walk, talk, respond!”

“I read about every therapy method available. We contacted all kinds of therapists, from the reasonable to the bizarre. I went to conferences on rehabilitation and epilepsy, I was active in forums for parents of children with disabilities. You could say that for all his early years, I was mainly ‘Yehonatan’s Mom.’ It was fascinating and intense, full of motivation and faith.”

But then, after five years of intensive, around-the-clock care, she realized something had to change.

“I remembered that there are other parts of me besides being ‘Yehonatan’s Mom.’ I went back to studying music, fell in love with music and myself and creativity all over again. We had more children- healthy and whole, thank G-d- and life started to expand into new, parallel paths beyond just rehabilitation.”

“This summer, Yehonatan will turn 15. The home we’re currently building is fully adapted for a completely dependent child. I feel ready to surrender. Not out of despair or helplessnes, but as an active choice to surrender. To surrender to a limited reality, to disability, to the irreversible injury. G-d is great and can do anything, but if we live in a world governed by nature and not by miracles, then some fundamental things are not going to change.”

“Our sweet son, my firstborn, will likely spend his life in a wheelchair, be tube-fed, struggle to breathe, visit the hospital twice a month, and be hospitalized on average once every two years for surgery. We’ll empty the pharmacy every month, and my phone will always be full of medical contacts. And we’ll still need strength just to handle the daily routine of treatments, feedings, changing, bathing and tests. We can’t live only on dreams of a better future.”

“I am ready to surrender. In that surrender, with all the pain and sorrow it carries, there is also something comforting, even relieving: This is the story. This is exactly how it was supposed to be- nothing else was meant to happen. 

Let go of the story that causes you pain because it doesn’t match reality- the story is not the reality. What exists is what exists.
And after all, it’s not so terrible. I dreamed of Italy, but Holland has beautiful flowers too. Doesn’t it?” she concludes.