A few years ago I found the doctor who raped and molested me
as a child: I stumbled upon his grave in the cemetery in my home town.

I have often wondered why he came back?
--Did he return after I went to college, and continue the affair with my mother?

I didn't have enough saliva in my mouth that day (it was a hot summer afternoon)
to spit on his grave...so I threw my water bottle at his tombstone instead.

I took your advice in your above previous post, and talked to my Rabbi
about my concerns in regard to him abandoning me. He promised me long
ago that he would never leave...He said that I am a very special case.
He hasn't left.

I struggle with issues of abandonment on many different levels:
Being abandoned as a child,
having my fiancee die--and being abandoned then,
and, in a sense--professional career abandonment.

When my fiancee died--I ended up homeless and living on the streets
of Denver for 7 months. I told myself IF I had all of my degrees
and not just a Bachelor's--that I would never be in this homeless situation.
It was the driving element which sent me to grad school to get all of my
graduate degrees and to become the professor.

When the recession hit--I lost my full tenure track position,
I lost my home, and I found myself working 2 part time jobs.
I was teaching in the evening, and working as a designer at a church
during the day...Even with both jobs it only amounted to approximately 30%
of what I was making on my salary as a full professor.

When I decided to take my sabbatical, and pick up another Master's Degree
in Holocaust Education this year in Israel...I lived in my car for 10 months
prior to making the trip. I simply didn't have the money to pay for rent, plane tickets, pre-college fees, visa, etc--to get to Israel. If I got accepted into the program--the only way I could afford to go is if I lived in my car for almost a year prior.

The winters in Nebraska get down to -22 below zero, with the summers as hot
as 117 degrees in the shade. I lived in my car from New Year's Day of 2015 until October of 2015. About 5 days before I got on the plane to fly to Israel
I sold my vehicle. I visited my grandmother in Denver, and had a place to sleep until my plane took off.

Homeless people who live in their vehicles and work during the day live
their lives in complete isolation. I joined a gym about 5 blocks from the church--and was able to work out each morning there, and then take a shower and get ready. I bought a sleeping bag that will keep a human being warm down to -40. It was the item that saved my life during the harsh winter of sleeping in my car each night.

When summer came, I was required to read 4 books on the Holocaust prior to the program starting in Israel in October. Too hot to read in my car--I spent my summer reading all of those books in the city cemetery.

I have never felt so abandoned in my life. My Rabbi lives in Israel.
We corresponded for 2 years prior to my coming here, and getting accepted
into the program. I would've died as a homeless person without his guidance. None of the homeless shelters would take me. I wasn't a single mother who had been beat up by her husband. Nor was a I woman who would flunk an alcohol or drug test. There was no shelter for me to go to, and there are no hostels in the city I lived in.

Once my program ends, I will have no job to return to.
No home to fly back to in the United States, and no car to drive.
I was the homeless professor who lost it all in the recession,
and ended up sleeping in my car for 10 months to get myself
out of such a hopeless situation--to go back to grad school.

I pray each day, and know that being homeless and abandoned
has always brought me closer to G-d.

I just hope that after this graduate program ends, that it is the turning point
in my career--and I get hired as a designer at either a Holocaust or Jewish Museum. If not--I will be forced to return to the United States. And, I don't know where I will go once the plane lands.