The month leading up to a wedding is usually a busy time with a thousand and one things to accomplish:
Finding a venue, booking a hall, finalising numbers of guests, arranging for invitations, music, photographer, shopping for new clothes - the list continues.
For one specific family in Eretz Yisrael, a mother of 8 found herself fitting these exciting but busy tasks to prepare for the wedding of her first born son, in between painful treatments. She tried hard to keep up her strength but could wait no longer. The invitations were ready to be picked up, but her Petira came soon after, now the invitations were missing the letters עלה השלום - ע"ה next to the mothers name.
The son, the new Chatan asks "Weren't you able to wait a little longer Ima? Perhaps till the week after my wedding? What will my wedding be without my Ima?"
Sadly, we can not bring back the mother of these 8 children. We can not replace the person who took care of all their needs as any mother does. Their wound will last until Moshiach comes. But we can reach into our pockets and help this young Chatan to come to Chuppah and to build his Bayit Ne'eman. His Chuppah is booked for 30 June 2011. That is just a few days away.
Still within Shloshim, his wedding will be a little different. Please have mercy on these orphans and make a generous donation to help to ease their physical needs.