Tragedy helps family live in the moment

JORDAN MOSHE

His experience led him to write You Are Here, a story of overcoming tragedy by taking possession of your life.

“Growing up, I was always fearful and anxious,” Brozin told the Saltzman Community Centre in Linksfield on Sunday evening in a talk hosted by the Jewish Women’s Benevolent Society. “I was an obsessive thinker for whom everything was scary. Everything was a potential threat.”

It was his father’s untimely passing that shook his confidence. His father was diagnosed with the tumour when Brozin was four years old, and in spite of undergoing extensive surgery, he passed away three years later.

Says Brozin, “Your father is a support, and suddenly he wasn’t there. Everything changes when you lose that figure in your life. I lost my trust in the universe.”

Growing up, Brozin feared the worst, and sought greater control over his life. The spectre of a brain tumour loomed large in his mind, creating a debilitating paranoia which prevented him from enjoying life. He seldom lived in the moment, consistently fearful of the future and the challenges it might bring.

“I read thousands of books,” he recalls. “It was my thing to go to Exclusive Books and read books on dealing with anxiety, how to control things and think positive thoughts. I was always in my head, never really enjoying the moment.”

At 16, he met Jodi, the woman who would become his wife ten years later. Their marriage was a happy one, and they had four children together. However, he remained fearful of what might happen, and was determined to stay in control. While out shopping one day, he came across a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, a book which changed his life altogether.

Says Brozin, “This was a foreign concept for me. Now? There was always only the future or the past. However, the ‘little me’ Tolle spoke about, the one who was fearful and never living in the present, was me. It changed my perspective.”

As time passed, Brozin learned how to regain the confidence he had lost by living in the moment, realising that there was more to life than obsessing over what might happen. He became more self-aware, rooting his mind firmly in the present and nowhere else. Motivated by his progress, he even wrote a book, Tree, in which he shared the lessons in trust he had learned with his children.

Tragically, history repeated itself in 2018, when Jodi was diagnosed with a brain tumour. The diagnosis came after Brozin’s wife experienced recurring episodes of forgetfulness over a number of weeks.

“It started when she forgot to fetch the kids from school,” said Brozin. “After that, her Pilates instructor called me to say that she had been forgetting classes and was arriving very late.

“I didn’t think too much of it until I woke up at five one morning to find that she wasn’t in bed next to me. It had never happened before, and I went looking for her. I found her at the computer, and when I told her what time it was, she said she had lost her concept of time.”

A test result received on erev (the evening of) Rosh Hashanah that year confirmed a tumour, turning Brozin’s world upside down for the second time in his life.

“What I’d feared for such a long time had become a reality,” he says. “I didn’t sleep that night. The ‘little me’ was back, and life felt terrible again.”

This time, however, Brozin chose to embrace the situation, and address it with positivity. When his wife underwent surgery to have the tumour removed, he walked the hospital grounds with his children, and together they committed to rise to the challenge.

Says Brozin, “We embraced the situation. I’m not saying it was easy. I cried often. But we made the most of every moment we had.

“We took our time at meals, and sat for hours laughing and just enjoying each other’s company. As a family, we made use of every moment, laughing and smiling even when we took Jodi for her chemo sessions.”

Brozin says he learned to let go, allowing circumstances beyond his control to unfold. Whether at home or on a family holiday, every moment was maximised, and the time spent together was cherished. With time, Jodi’s condition worsened, and when a test showed that the tumour had returned, chemotherapy was discontinued.

Even then, the family remained resolute. “We continued laughing, smiling, and having fun as a family,” says Brozin. “When the hospice stepped in to help, the nurse taught us something profound.

“He told my children that their mother was giving them the gift of consciousness, an appreciation of life that no other children would experience. He told them their hearts would break, but would grow back twice as big.”

Jodi Brozin passed away on 5 March 2018. He remembers her final words well.

“I told her how anxious I was about continuing alone and raising four children by myself. She told me that she knew I’d pull myself together, for myself and the kids. ‘I want you to be happy’ was her mantra, and they were the last words she said to me. She helped me embrace her final moment.”

After his wife’s death, Brozin’s children convinced him to write another book. It would not only contain his experience, but would help others learn how to seize the present.

This is the lesson Brozin wants others to take to heart. “You are here,” he concluded. “Grab what you have right now, and don’t let the ‘little me’ take over. We all find ways to deal with adversity, and as a family, we’ve become stronger and wiser because of it.”