About three years ago, my daughter was born with a rare medical condition. She was hospitalized in the NICU for many months, undergoing many surgeries and treatment. When she finally came home, she came home with a lot of medical support. One such support was a g-tube. She did not know how to suck or swallow, and thus needed to be fed through a tube that went directly into her stomach to give her the vital nutrition that she needed. Our active goal was to teach her to eat and drink independently, and not need to use the g-tube. The problem was, that when she was in the hospital, she was on a breathing tube for many months, not allowing her to even be offered to suck from a bottle. Therefore, she completely lost her skill. If we’d put a drop of liquid on her tongue, she had no idea what to do with it. As a side note, we came to recognize that we take it for granted that when we put food or drinks in our mouth, we know what to do with it. We understand to move our tongue around our mouth to get the food in the right place. We realize what it means to chew and to swallow. There really are many intricate steps that take place in our mouths before our food gets swallowed, and it’s unbelievable that we all know how to! So, we were starting from the very bottom with teaching our daughter how to eat and drink. We went to tons and tons of therapy sessions. Each therapist gave us homework to do at home. The homework was so frustrating, that I felt I would explode! I would sit next to my daughter in her highchair, and present the food to her, in the manner that the therapist told me to do. Sometimes it was stimulating the mouth first, sometimes it was using a different type of spoon, or straw, or cup. It may have been changing the consistency of the food, or liquid. Always something else. But the aggravation, and frustration was to the next level. My daughter just wouldn’t comply! Nothing helped! She just drooled it out, spat it out, or just stared at me blankly! Sometimes, I just sat there in tears. Then, one day it hit me that this is just absolutely crazy. Here I am getting so aggravated because I am not seeing the results that I want. All I’m doing here is hishtadlus. The results are up to Hashem. I don’t need to get frustrated over not seeing results. That’s not up to me. So, I created a new routine for myself. I would set for myself a certain amount of time that I was going to feed my daughter for. I told myself that I am doing my hishtadlus, and after that, whatever the results are, are completely up to Hashem. I felt a new calmness. As I fed my daughter, I would sing,
