This is my Gimmel Tammuz.
Quiet and alone in a house with two sleeping children upstairs, bone tired from my day, while my friends get a ride to the Ohel with my sister, and I eat pastries taken from a farbrengen, and chat online.
I will go next week, when the Ohel is as empty as it ever gets, and I can confront my Rebbe on my own.
Tonight, I do a greater service, letting my sister and brother-in-law, front-line soldiers that they are, gather strength from being in Crown Heights at this time.

Gimmel Tammuz

B"H
Tuesday will be Gimmel Tammuz.
It's a time when a Chossid is supposed to think of their hiskashrus to the Rebbe. A tip from one of my teachers was to make it personal. What has the Rebbe done for YOU? How has he affected YOUR life?
So I thought about it. And (not surprisingly) I came up with quite a lot. Here is the chain of events that I came up with:
1) My parents became frum:
If my mother hadn't met Chabad, she might be Conservative, and living in Seattle.
If my father hadn't met Chabad, he might be liberal and living in San Fransico.
They might not have met.
If they had (somehow), they might not have had me. (I'm the third child).
If they had met, and had our family, they might have raised us in a completely secular lifestyle. And had I been raised like that, would I be anything like the person I am today?
2)My parents asked the Rebbe, and went to Berkeley:
If they had stayed in Crown Heights, I would be (shudder) a Bais Rivka Girl.
If they had moved to Seattle, I might have met my best friend much earlier, and our relationship would be completely different.
If they had moved to LA, I might have gotten involved in the wrong crowd of friends, and who knows where I'd be now.
3)I went to Bais Chana High School:
I met my best friend.
I realized there was a Chassidish World out there.
I applied to Chitrik.
4)I went to Chitrik:
And everything happened there.
Now I'm here.
There's more. So many details, so many that I don't even realize the source of all of them. I was born a Chosid. That means I was handpicked. Chosen.
Now I have to ask myself, "Am I doing everything I should to justify that choice?"
And I have to deal with what the answer is.
Gimmel Tammuz. Tuesday.
May we merit to see our Rebbe physically right now!