The Eggshell Effect

By Joel Holc and Lee Kann

"The Eggshell Effect" is a phenomenon that all human beings can fall prey to, as did Joel Holc. It is an all-encompassing state of being, leaving you protected from the world, but severely limited in life. Through an acute awareness of self, Joel has managed to break through the eggshell with his greatest weapon...love. Armored in this love, he

• Language: English
• Publisher: the eggshell effect
• Release date: Feb 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781734025095

Book preview

Chapter 1

No Man’s Land

Technically, my journey began when I was born, and continued in Argentina, Israel, the Netherlands, Brazil, New York, and finally (so far) in Pittsburgh. But in sharing my life journey, I must begin in the spring of 2013, in what may seem like an ungodly place, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, the largest in Canada.

Like most major airports, it is both cavernous and oddly claustrophobic. With a six-hour layover to Israel, my stay seemed like eternity, given the gravity of my circumstances. The impending death of my mother and impending death of my marriage had left me in a peculiar combination of bewilderment and consciousness, frequently vacillating between the two.

I was one of thousands of other nomads wandering through Pearson International. I was not in Pittsburgh where I lived, nor in Israel where I was raised and to where I was returning. I felt like Viktor Navorski, the Tom Hanks character in the movie, The Terminal, a man stuck in an airport, a man with no country, a man between worlds. Simply put—in no man’s land.

I sat there scanning my situation. My second wife, Sophia, and I were struggling in our marriage, even though we had done couples counseling in the past. Then at her urging, I began seeing a therapist on my own to explore how I might be contributing to the marital discord. The work I did with my therapist was beginning to reveal some of the invisible infrastructure of my psyche.

Patricia, a therapist in her fifties, was tall and attractive with long flowing black hair. She was confident and in tune with me, just as I was beginning to understand some of the experiences, beliefs, and assumptions that had shaped how I viewed the world, and the subsequent decisions I had made.

In fact, I had unearthed something quite consequential. I saw for the first time that I did not feel safe with women unless I perceived them to be broken, wounded, or vulnerable in some way that was as great or greater than myself. There was a great freedom in discovering how I established romantic relationships.

Later that day, my oldest sister, Yudith, called me from my mother’s apartment in Rehovot, Israel, to relay to me that our mother was dying and it’s going to end soon. I hung up the phone feeling lost, helpless, and uncertain. Of course, I wanted to see my mother one last time before she died, but it was not so easy to just get up and go. Last-minute plane fare to Israel was expensive and my life in Pittsburgh was complicated. I ran my own business, had to deal with two teens, and struggled in my marriage.

Something about this last phone call was different, however. When Yudith—her voice breaking—told me that our mother could die at any moment, I believed her. My mother, Malka, a small but strong woman with big hair and an even bigger heart, had stopped eating days before. She had been battling cancer—with it starting in her intestines, then metastasizing to her breast and liver—for seven torturous years. Eventually, her doctors gave up on her. There was nothing they could do, they claimed, except to try to ease her pain.

My mother grew tired of the fight and surrendered to death. She had faced the horrors of death before in her life, but for me, her impending death was terrifying. I could not imagine life without her, even though I had not lived with her since I was ten years old. She was the most important person in my life, and I wanted—no, needed—to see her one last time. I was terrified of losing her.

As for Sophia, she was a beautiful woman with a beautiful expansive smile and a passion for life and healthy living. While her gregarious personality afforded her the ease in which to connect with anyone, she could not connect with me at that moment. She wanted me to wait until my mother actually passed and then go to Israel for the funeral. She was also skeptical that my mother was actually dying.

It can’t be, Sophia protested, you just saw her a few weeks ago and she seemed strong. She couldn’t deteriorate this fast.

For the few years that Sophia and I had been together, I had gone to Israel habitually to see my mom—something I was able to do—thanks to Sophia being at home with the kids. In fact, she and I had flown to Israel with my two children just three weeks prior so that we could all say goodbye.

How many times do you need to say goodbye? she probed, then added, you always go and leave me here with the kids.

She was right. The kids were mine from my previous marriage to Nicole. They were not Sophia’s responsibility even though she was their step-mother, who worked very hard to be just that. I could understand on one level why she was resistant. It was reasonable for Sophia to ask that I not jump on a plane to go across the globe once again to visit my ailing mother. But when my sister called to tell me that Malka was actually dying, something shifted. I had to go. I just had to go. I felt a great disappointment with Sophia’s insensitivity. How could she not see my anguish?

Sophia stated emphatically that it was not okay with her that I leave. All I could hear was—she didn’t care how I felt or what was important to me. She pressed the issue and would not leave it alone. She stated over and over that if I left, she would be gone. The conversation naturally got heated. She stormed off to the bedroom yelling from the top of the stairs.

If you leave, I will not be here when you get back, was her threat. A couple of hours had passed when she returned to say, I don’t want you to go but if you do, we are going back to counseling.

I felt that it might be a good time to share with her the realization from my session with Patricia earlier in the day. My cognizance was so illuminating that in the midst of this breakdown of ours, I hoped that my confession would unify us. Instead, she was