|
|
|
Jewish World Review Nov. 20, 2001 / 5 Kislev 5762
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THERE'S nothing like completing chemotherapy to spice up a birthday
party. Recently, 40 of my dearest friends performed a commemorative
Havdallah ceremony to mark a really great CT scan and year 53. My
"re-birthday" celebration was just the ticket, restorative not only for me
but also for the extended community that has seen me through my struggle with
lung cancer.
In the afternoon, we painted silk squares for a healing quilt. We
stuffed ourselves on smoked turkey and exotic salads. At sunset, we stood in
a circle, lighting each other's candles, saying blessings, smelling the
spices that would stimulate the memory of friendship overcoming pain.
After the candles were blown out, we stood around the lemon cake lit with
a single candle and sang the Birthday Song. When we got to the last line, I
raised my arms like a choral director and elicited a benediction.
"Hap-py Birth-day to you. And mannnnny more."
Yes, yes, make it so. Many, many more.
It is wonderful to be back among the living.
During the afternoon, I walked around my garden, the summer sun dappling
through mock pear trees. I eavesdropped as my friends, all Baby Boomers,
complained about the ravages of age.
One cries that her ear lobes are growing longer.
Another says her face is sagging.
Still another notes that her nose seems bigger, or that there's no hair
on her legs.
How I want these problems, too. And when I'm 90, a sturdy cane, decent
hearing, a steady hand for the crossword puzzle, gums to eat corn. Many
mannnnny more.
Now begins yet another hard part, the reconstruction of normal time. Cancer
shakes to the roots any complacency that we own our own existence. A day, a
week, a month, a year. The forest of my life has separated into
distinguishable trees, many of them now fallen as if by a hurricane. Who or
what owns what comes next? I am baffled. What is a worthwhile activity, and
what would lead only to irrelevance or regret?
When the matriarch Sarah dies, the Torah counts her life this way: "The
life of Sarah was 100 years, and 20 years and seven years."
Why the triple repetition of the word "years"? The sages answer that Sarah
truly lived every part of her life cycle: She was intently young, intently
adult, intently old.
"One who has truly lived walks through the days," observes the 18th Century commentator, Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch. "He does not walk above them or below them." I will walk through
the days, too.
What does this mean to me? Rabbi Hirsch explains that we must bring the best of
ourselves into our future. I assume he doesn't mean my youthful love of
Archie and Veronica comics, but wouldn't mind my carrying along a sense of
humor.
Can I really move on without resentment, not embittered by cancer, still
resolutely me (whatever that might mean)?
The mythology of cancer is that the disease changes us in big ways. We
imagine that if we survive chemo, well, naturally, we'll quit our jobs, or go
off on a junket around the world, living with an urgency and a new desire for
spicy food.
But I'm not so sure. Since the diagnosis of lung cancer, the biggest change
I intuit is that I drive slower.
Well, it's true. I have a peculiar new understanding of risk, and the
way unfortunate forces converge in unpredictable ways. There is danger in a
sloppy left-hand turn, and what about that guy tailgating in the next lane.
Having made it through lung surgery, would I want to die on Pacific Coast
Highway?
To counter this caution, maybe what I need to bring with me into this
next period is my insouciance. I loved being young. I gave away my years,
and flaunted my energy. I crammed a lifetime into a day, reading bad books,
following bad fashion, seeing bad movies without discrimination. "Hope I die
before I get old," I sang with the car radio. How close to that goal I
08/06/01: The Waiting Room
And many more
By Marlene Adler Marks
JWR contributor Marlene Adler Marks is a columnist and author of "A Woman's Voice: Reflections on Love, Death, Faith, Food & Family Life ". Send your comments to her by clicking here.
07/17/01: Some of the best times of my life have happened during chemo
04/19/01: Head Trip
04/11/01: Doorposts of my House
11/16/99: The return of my first-love
10/13/99: Educating the 'new Jew'
10/05/99: Digging in Deep
06/13/99: McCain, Jewish frontrunner?
06/08/99: The Meaning of Loehmann's, RIP
