A Bit About Avi’s History

The manner in which the members of this site have come together to help others on the site has truly touched me.  And, this is not anywhere near the first time I have seen this happen and I doubt it will be the last. 

When we began Elliottwavetrader many years ago, we envisioned it to be a place where traders and investors can come to learn about Elliott Wave and to understand the effect that investor sentiment has upon the market. 

But, you have all elevated this small space we occupy on the world wide web well beyond a site where one can come for analysis and learning.  Rather, you have all elevated this space to a true community where members show care and concern for other human beings . .. even to those you have never met.  You have exhibited what is good and caring in the human nature of man, and what should be expected of all of us throughout our lives.  You have strengthened my belief in all our ability to achieve our higher purposes, as we spend our relative short times on the face of this planet.

To this end, I salute each and every one of you.

I think each and every one of us has a story or 10 to share.  Remember, life is not mean to be easy.  No one escapes the trials and tribulations of life.  And, I mean NO ONE!!  We all have to go through our share of difficulties. 

In fact, there is an old Jewish perspective on this matter.  They say that if each and every person were to put their difficulties into a bag, and then each would place that bag in the middle of the room.  If each person were to then have the ability to choose the difficulties we see from among all the bags in the room, each would choose their own bag rather than those of someone else.

What does that tell you?

There is another old saying – G-d only gives us as much as we can handle.  My personal retort is that I have no idea why does He thinks so highly of me. (smile)

So, I feel compelled to share my own personal journey.  And, again, I do not think it to be more trying than what many of you have experienced.  But, it puts things into perspective and if it can assist someone else during their trying period of life to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, then it is clearly worth the effort and the purpose for which I share.

I personally grew up with a mother who had many issues when it came to money.  That was her primary focus in life, especially since she did not have much growing up through the war as a Jew in Russia.  And, even as I grew up, we did not have much.  But, due to her obsession with money, we parted ways many years ago, and I have been estranged from my mother for many years.  In fact, I was basically responsible for supporting myself since I was around 15. 

In my mid-twenties, I married someone who was a good friend of mine through my teen years and early twenties.  Our first years of marriage were wonderful.  We had a son, and then a daughter.  But, before our daughter was born, my father-in-law took ill, and we brought him into our home to care for him.  Now, to put this into perspective, you must understand that he was more than 20 years older than my mother-in-law, whom I never met since she passed away when my first wife was 16 years old.  So, he was 80 years old at the time we took him in and did not have any money with which to support himself.

Two months after my first wife had our daughter, my father-in-law passed away.  My wife was going through a very bad bout of post-partum depression at the time, and his death spiraled her out of control.  She fell into gambling, smoking and drugs.  Needless to say, we no longer had a stable life.  For many years I had sought help, but she was never able to accept it. And, this was at a time I had started my own consulting firm with a partner, who then left the country and cleaned out our corporate bank account.  In fact, around this same time, she even gambled away what was left in our bank account and we could not even pay our mortgage. Eventually, she ran off with someone I was quite friendly with, and left me with our two children when they were 8 and 6. 

We then began to share custody of the children when she became a bit more “stable,” but clearly that would not last long.  The next years were extraordinarily tumultuous for me and my children, as she began to turn my children against me. With “complaints” being called into the police and Child Protective Services becoming a regular event, life was not easy for any of us.  Eventually, we had to go through a bitter custody battle in which the court gave me full custody (something very unusual in our area of the country according to my attorney), ordered her to get a psychological evaluation, and only allowed her to see the children once every two weeks.

While the mother of my first two children passed away several years ago (the drugs finally took over her body), unfortunately, they are still dealing with the long term affects from her involvement in their lives. 

Yet, even during this tumultuous time, I had met an extraordinary woman – my second wife, Becky.  Those of you that have been on this site when we began in 2011 know this story all too well, as you lived through it with me. But, needless to say, 11 days after our son Yoni was born, we found out that Becky had a very rare and aggressive form of cancer, and passed away 3 extremely difficult years later.

For those that want to read about how we began this site and what I went through during Becky’s illness and ultimate passing, you can read the following posts I wrote in the past – and I can assure you that you will be astounded at the quality person that Becky was:

https://www.elliottwavetrader.net/elliottwavetheory/memberlibrary/How-EWT-Began-201303241736.html

https://www.elliottwavetrader.net/p/analysis/Eulogy-For-Becky-Lynn-Gilburt-201510232171245.html

Needless to say, I understand what it feels like to be “to hell and back.”  And, I want each and every person reading my words to understand that no matter how difficult life may seem, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.  To this end, I am pleased to report that I was lucky enough to remarry to an amazing women – Sharise, which a number of you have even met at our member get togethers.

Unfortunately, we did not ride off into the sunset together, as there is no such thing in life.

For those of you that have been on this site during the last year, you would know that we had a near death experience with Sharise as well.  This past May, we took Sharise’s daughter on a trip to Jackson Hole for a high school graduation present. On our first day there, Sharise and her daughter went for a horseback ride, and the horse took off and threw Sharise onto a concrete road.  Unfortunately, she landed directly on her head, crack her skull, and had spinal fluid coming out of her ear.  I was not with them at the time, and when arrived at the hospital, they were preparing her for a medical air-lift to a trauma center in Idaho that could handle her extremely serious injuries.

The head of the emergency unit at the Jackson Hole hospital pulled me aside and prepared me that she may not live through her injuries.  In fact, he was not even sure she would live through the transport.  Needless to say, the two-hour drive to the Idaho hospital was the longest two hours of my life, as I did not know if my wife was still alive.

As many of you are now aware, Sharise had nothing less than a miraculous recovery and has only relatively minor remaining issues stemming from this freak accident.      

So, my friends, do not expect life to be easy.  I do not think it is meant to be.  But, I think we are here to become better people through these difficulties with which we are challenged in life.  And, if we had it easy, we would never be pushed to become better.  These trials we go through in life test our mettle and make us better people for it.

My pride in having started this site has never been greater than when I read the posts of this past week.  Again, I salute each and every one of you and am extraordinarily proud to be a member of this amazing group of people. 

And, remember, no matter what you have been through in life, and no matter what you may be going through in life, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.