Mrs. Charlene Aminoff
My Dear Gali
שהחינו וקימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה
Who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this time
Monday, July 26, 2010. 15th of Av, 5770.
It was a beautiful day in Miami Beach, Florida. My parents and in-laws had been coming down to visit us on alternate weekends to spend time with the kids, and this weekend was no exception. Deciding with my husband, Jonathan, that we would take the kids to the beach to go wave running on jet skis, I was assured that my boys would definitely love doing so. After all, it would be a great way of keeping them busy. Yet still too young to join such an excursion was my three-week-old baby girl, Aliza. Having had my mother, father and brother fly down to spend some time with us, my mother agreed to take care of Aliza in the stroller, while the rest of us would head out to the beach.
But then I noticed that my 2-year-old daughter, Gali, had fallen asleep next to the pool. Not wishing to disturb her and wake her up, I asked my housekeeper if she could keep an eye on her while we would be away for a little while. My husband had made reservations at the beach for 2 pm and we figured that we would be back by 3 pm, at which point, my husband needed to be upstairs working on his computer. With my husband involved in the stock market, he could almost always be found attached to his computer between the hours of 3 pm and 4 pm, the final hours of the trading day. We would be gone for around forty-five minutes and return in time for him to get to work.
Arriving at the wave runner’s stand, we soon realized that we had a problem. One of the jet skis was broken. Now needing to wait until other jet skis were made available, after a while, we finally made it out. Yet, upon finishing that round of wave running, my 18-year-old brother wasn’t so ready to leave. “I want to go again! Please, could we go one more time!” he said. While my husband had no problem letting him go alone, that could not be done. For insurance purposes, anyone under the age of 21 needed adult accompaniment. While my husband tried explaining that he had to make it back to his room by 3 pm, he wanted to be nice and allow my brother the opportunity to wave run again. But who would be stuck accompanying him if not Jonathan himself. And so, they took off. But not for long.
Once they had made it all the way out into the water, their jet ski broke down. All that could be heard were their screams for help. But, to be sure, help only arrived quite some time later. By the time they returned to shore, it was 3:30 pm.
At this point, Jonathan realized that it would not be worth heading upstairs for only half an hour. And so, as the saying goes, if you cannot beat them, join them. Deciding that he would stay with us, we all agreed to make our way down to the pool and have lunch.
Walking closer to the pool, as we finally arrived, we were met by yelling and screaming. “Somebody call 911! Somebody call 911!” With my husband having been an experienced medic for Hatzalah for over 20 years, he immediately sprang into action. Turning to the man screaming, he asked, “What’s the matter? I can help you!” It was at that moment that I finally saw what the source of the commotion was. There stood a man holding the dead body of a little girl in the pool. My heart started racing. “She looks so familiar,” I said to myself. And then, all of a sudden, I looked to where my 2-year-old daughter, Gali, was supposed to have been sleeping. She was not there. But my house keeper was asleep right next to her. If I could tell you what gehinnom felt like, I could describe it in vivid detail. All I could think was, “What am I going to do? How am I going to wake up tomorrow and live?”
My husband immediately grabbed Gali and started performing CPR. Yet although he was keeping his cool, he was yelling, “Gali, come back to daddy! Gali, come back to daddy!” As for myself, all I could do was stand there and look at my daughter. Her eyes were open, face was blue and nails, purple. At that moment, one thought raced through my mind. While I hadn’t been religious my whole life, one major connection I always had with Judaism was Tehillim. And in chapter 119, the first verse beginning with the letter kuf says, “And I cried out with all my heart, answer me Hashem; I will keep Your ways.” As I pondered this Pasuk, I realized what I had to do. I would have to give something to Hashem. I would have to offer something big of myself to Hashem if I wished to change the circumstances I was looking at.
There was only one thing I could think of, though: my beautiful hair. Although I was Torah observant, I was not covering my hair completely. I had been wearing my hair down with a bandana, hat or beret, but not fully covering it. The reason was because my beautiful blond hair stood out as my identity. I also always figured that being the wife of a CEO of a hedge fund, I would certainly be unable to walk into a gala dressed in a Carolina Herrara outfit, bedecked in Harry Winston jewelry and yet wearing a sheitel or mitpachat on my head. It just didn’t make sense to me. And so, I kept on pushing it off. Until one day, when that all changed.
That day was July 26, 2010. As I stood watching my husband perform CPR on my little daughter, I grabbed my blue pashmina shawl and started screaming and sobbing, “Shehechiyanu, v’kiyimanu, v’higianu laz’man hazeh!” And with that, I began to wrap my long, thick hair. It took me minutes to wrap everything. I was screaming, sobbing and wrapping over and over again. All that I could imagine was how all the jewelry, money and luxuries I owned would not matter at all if I would wake up tomorrow and not have Gali. At that moment, all my priorities in life drastically shifted.
By the time I finished wrapping all my hair, I looked over at my husband. He recognized what I had done and knew that I had just accepted upon myself a lifelong vow, regardless of Gali’s outcome. I was going to be covering my hair for the rest of my life. As for Jonathan, he too realized that now or never was the time to turn to Hashem. And so, he began storming the heavens. Shaking and begging Hashem to revive our dear daughter, I could tell that he was having an intensely emotional conversation with G-d. He had noticed me wrapping my hair, and he knew that he too needed to do something if we wished Gali to stay with us.
By the time I finished saying my Shehechiyanu and tucked the last strand of hair into my shawl, my husband finished his short tefillah to Hashem. And then, at that very moment, he started screaming, “I got her pulse! I got her pulse!” To this day, that is my favorite sentence he has ever said in his life. More than “I love you” or “Will you marry me?” those four words, “I got her pulse!” were the best words he ever said.
The stretcher was waiting, and so we quickly loaded Gali into the ambulance and headed off for the hospital. Jonathan stayed in the ambulance with Gali, while I followed behind with police escort. By the time I entered inside the hospital, I was met by my tough CEO husband crying uncontrollably. Fearing the worst, I began screaming. I knew that if he was crying, I should be too. But then, he picked up his hands from his face, and he was smiling. And so, I started dancing. Jonathan was smiling, so I was dancing. And so, there I was dancing in the middle of the hospital.
When the doctor shortly thereafter came out and told Jonathan that he had saved Gali’s life, he cried ten years’ worth. We had been married for ten years at the time, and not once did he shed a tear. He made it all up on that one day.
The doctors had carefully reviewed the entire event on a DVD. Since the building we were staying at was privately owned and numerous celebrities lived there, the entire building was under surveillance. As a result, using the camera which captured the entire incident, the doctors were able to replay the episode from beginning to end and look to see if there had been any trauma. Did Gali bang her head? How long was she underwater for?
My daughter, Gali, was clinically dead for 3 minutes and 10 seconds. A little 2-year-old weighing 22 pounds remained underwater without taking a breath for 3 minutes and 10 seconds. Considering her situation, we went on to transfer her to the Miami Children’s Hospital in Coral Gabels, a special hospital for drowning victims. As we did so, my husband flew down some of the most prominent neurologists. And after 8 hours of tests, worldwide Tehillim and every member of my family accepting upon themselves one area of tznius to improve in, we waited for the neurologist to tell us news of our daughter.
At this point, we knew that Gali was alive, but knew nothing about her neurological state. My husband had flown in one of the top neurologists in the country from Boston, Dr. Keith Meyer. Finally, the doors opened, and out walked Dr. Meyer, joined by his entourage.
“Mr. and Mrs. Aminoff,” he said, “we are doctors and we practice medicine. And the basis for medicine is science.” Right there and then, Dr. Meyer started crying. “But your daughter, Avigail Chanah, is not science. And she is not medicine. She is a miracle.”
Lighting up the wall with all of the CAT scans and MRI tests that had been taken, he said to us, “3 minutes and 10 seconds of your daughter being clinically dead, and not a trace of brain damage.” The wall was then lit up with x-rays from her lungs. It was not in any way noticeable that she was underwater for even 10 seconds. Her lungs were perfectly clear.
Then her blood work was put on display. “Not one trace of abnormal blood gas results in your daughter’s body. We cannot make sense of this,” Dr. Meyer said.
As I remained sitting there with my huge, blue shawl on my head, I pointed upward towards it. “I think I know what it is,” I said. Stopping for a moment, my husband and I turned to Dr. Meyer and said, “Are you Jewish?” “I actually am,” he said. Continuing to question him, I asked, “Do you believe in G-d?” Dr. Meyer looked at the other doctors, and together they all nodded. “I guess we do now.”
“Mrs. Aminoff,” said Dr. Meyer, “I am going to be honest with you. Until today, I don’t know what I believed. But I promise you that I can go home tonight and tell my wife and kids that there must be a G-d because of your Gali. We are practical people who use statistics and proofs. But this is clearly the working of G-d.”
As I heard those words, all I could think of was that perhaps this nightmare occurred for this one doctor in Coral Gables to turn his life around and become a baal teshuva. I would never know, but without question, that was a most reasonable consideration. Yet, clearly, there was much more that Hashem had in mind for me and my family.
The doctors then gave me and my husband a few minutes to regroup. I knew that now would be the best time to inform Jonathan of the few changes I had committed to. But I didn’t know how to break it to him. I was almost waiting for someone to make an introduction, but that was not going to happen. And so, I mustered the courage myself to broach the subject. “Jonathan,” I said, “there are a few things I need to tell you.” “No, no, me first,” he said. “No, trust me,” I said to him, “you want me to go first.” “Okay, what is it?”
“Well,” I began, “first of all, I will not be wearing bathing suits anymore. Second of all, I will no longer be able to shake any of your business partners’ hands because I am shomer negia. Thirdly, all my designer gowns and clothes that have slits will have to be closed. Additionally, the movie theater which you just finished building in our basement is not going to be plugged into cable. And lastly, I am going to cover my hair.”
He thought for a moment and just stood there. I could only imagine what was running through his head. “How am I going to tell the guys?” But now it was his turn. “Honey, when you reached over for your shawl, I realized right away what you were about to do. To be honest, I was so happy with your decision because I knew that there was no way I would be able to get Gali back on my own. And in fact, you actually encouraged and inspired me to offer a little sacrifice of my own. As I saw you wrapping your shawl, I turned to Hashem and said, “Hashem, I have given You 20 years of work in Hatzalah. Now I am cashing in all those merits. If You give me back my daughter, I promise You 20 more years in Hatzalah.
“At the moment I finished with my promise for Hatzalah and you finished with your Shehechiyanu, I felt Gali’s pulse. So honey, I am going to be in Hatzalah until I am 58 years old.”
After this little discussion between me and my husband, the doctors returned and told us, “You can now take your miracle daughter home. No follow-ups are needed.” And there we were. She had fallen into the pool on Monday, was released from the hospital Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning, she was back in the pool. I myself did not look once at the pool for another two weeks, but Gali was back in action without undue delay.
The next day, the building hosted a little party for us, partially in recognition of the amazing survival of Gali and partially in the hope that we would not sue them. At the party, we met the man who had saved and held Gali’s body while in the pool. His name was Richard Marianski. Walking over to us, he said, “Do you know that your daughter is a miracle?” “Yeah,” we said, “we know she is a miracle. “No,” he reiterated, “she is really, really a miracle. You don’t understand. I live in this building two months out of the year. Yet when I live here, I never have time to go swimming. But on Monday, I happened to go swimming because I had an appointment later in the day and it was a beautiful day out. I figured that I would go for a quick swim. But that is only half the story.
“You see, I was doing laps in the deep end and your daughter, Gali, had fallen into the pool all the way on the other diagonal side of the pool, in the shallow end. After I finished my laps, I began thinking that I would climb out of the pool using the ladder in the deep end, next to where I was. But I couldn’t do so, as just a bit earlier, I had pulled a tendon in my knee. It would have been too difficult for me to use the ladder and climb out of the pool. I therefore decided to use the steps in the shallow end. But I didn’t swim straight from one end of the pool to the other end. Instead, I chose to swim diagonally across the pool from one side to the other. And there I saw, underneath the water, a little ball lying at the bottom of the shallow end. That was your daughter, Gali.”
As Richard relayed this information, I couldn’t believe my ears. I could just imagine what would have been if Richard woke up that morning and his knee wasn’t hurting him. There was no way he would have swum to the shallow end. He would have simply climbed out of the pool in the deep end, grabbed his towel and left. And there was no one else in the pool at the time.
When we later arrived back home in New York, we immediately began planning a huge seudat hoda’ah (meal of thanks) as per one of the vows I made. Sponsoring a meal for many guests, we wanted to additionally hold a private gathering for rabbanim in our home to recall the miracle we experienced. Inviting local rabbis and some others from Israel, we hosted them together at our house. Telling us that we had been the recipients of an enormous, open miracle, they suggested that we accept upon ourselves something uniquely special as a sign of hoda’ah for Gali’s survival. And so, we went on to create Gali’s Couture Wigs, a sheitel company based out of Great Neck, New York.
Behind the Scenes
Of the many behind-the-scene miracles which occurred and were clearly orchestrated by Hashem in saving Gali’s life, let me share with you one which stands out most prominently.
When Gali was born, she was diagnosed with a terrible case of sleep apnea. While I had been told over and over by her ENT doctor that she needed to have her tonsils removed, being her worried mother, I did not want to see my 2-year-old daughter under anesthesia. And so, I kept on pushing it off to a later date.
Shortly before we left to vacation in Miami, the doctor said to me, “Mrs. Aminoff, the tonsils need to go.” “Please,” I said, “we are about to leave on a vacation for 8 weeks.” “I am sorry,” repeated the doctor, “but you have to do it now. I am not going to allow you to push it off any longer. Your daughter needs to grow and needs to eat.” Telling him that we would take care of it immediately after we returned from Miami, the doctor conceded. “But we are booking the date right now,” he said. That was fine with me. As long as it wouldn’t need to be done right now.
After vacationing in Miami and returning to New York, sure enough, we had her tonsils removed. But then, shortly after her surgery, her ENT doctor came racing out of the operation room with his face palely white. He knew what had happened to Gali just the other month. “Mr. and Mrs. Aminoff,” he said, “her tonsils saved her life.” “What are you talking about?” I said. “If you would have listened to me and taken out her tonsils earlier, there is no way she would have survived drowning. Clearly, though, Hashem made you delay removing her tonsils so they could remain in her body.” He then went on to explain exactly what he meant.
“You see, your daughter’s tonsils were in such poor condition and so significantly damaged that they trained her body to function on very low levels of oxygen. It was almost like a mountain climber who must use oxygen when climbing to high altitudes because the air is so thin. Your daughter was basically breathing like a mountain climber. If she would have had her tonsils removed, within 24 hours, she would have reverted back to normal breathing like every other child. Yet under such conditions, there is no way she would have survived being underwater for 3 minutes and 10 seconds. And so, Mr. and Mrs. Aminoff, that is why I say Hashem had you postpone her surgery. Her tonsils saved her life.”
Having experienced such a riveting journey, my husband and I realized that Hashem had been sending us countless wake-up calls throughout our life, yet we hadn’t picked them up. But now, we finally had. And without question, it was a wake-up call which would change the course of our lives forever. Baruch Hashem.
