Lessons

The ‘dreaded day’ is here. My hair is coming out and I will join the leagues of other bald patients. No tears, only fascination, and saving the clumps to put outside for the birds to use in building their nests. The lovely silver strands are soft and will be a good place to rear this seasons fledglings. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, that “every ending is a new beginning”. I am somewhat prepared: I have hats, scarves, even a wig, but I suppose that this is not something that we women are ever really prepared for. So the ending of my head of hair will be the place where our little neighbor hummingbirds will lay their eggs and raise their young and have their beginnings. And we will have the pleasure of watching the tiny eggs until they hatch, and we will see the long skinny beaks stretch upward to be fed until the day that they leave the nest and we will not see them again. And my hair will come back. Perhaps not the same as it is now, but it will eventually come back. And I will have my own new beginning. And with each change that takes place in my body, and in my household, and in my psyche because of the change in my cellular structure, I learn new things. There is a whole world of things that I have only known from afar, like from magazine articles, that I am learning about from much closer up. In the arrogance of good health, we think our passing familiarity with the vocabulary and the appearances of illness is all there is to know, but we are so wrong. Soon the vocabulary becomes personal, and the appearance becomes our own, and the feelings and the fears and the triumphs also become personal. No matter that one’s family, if one is as lucky as I am, is pulling for us and encouraging us, and helping us over every hurdle, the battle to stay real, to stay the person we have always perceived ourselves to be is an uphill daily battle. I ask myself daily, who is that woman in the mirror with the sunken chest, who is this person with the thinning old lady hair; who, indeed is this person who watches so much television because I am too tired to read and know that if I give in to a nap, I will pay the price in the small hours of the morning with wakefulness when everyone else sleeps. So every day I have to reintroduce myself to me, because every day there is something new to be learned from this path down which I am traveling. Some days I can taste my food, and some days not. Some days I am so tired for no apparent reason, and I will nap in the morning, and some days I seem to have enough energy to accomplish almost as much as I did before, until the moment that I seem to be dropping from exhaustion. For the days that I fought each new feeling, each new development, I tired myself out without anything to show for it. Now I look at each new thing and think, ‘now that’s interesting, I haven’t noticed that before.’ I guess what I am trying to say here, that if I can take life at its most frightening, and see it as something new to be learned, something interesting to be noticed, it takes away some of the sting. And when I see the love and support that is all around me from kind friends, loving family, even strangers that we encounter along the way who tenderly and hesitantly ask, ‘would it be all right if I pray for you?’ I know that I have come to visit in a place of great compassion and sensitivity, and that there are so many lessons to be learned here, and that no matter how hard it may be, I will labor to carry them back with me to the land of good health, and then offer them to those in the midst of their struggle for health. Do not shy away from the difficult. There are many valuable lessons to be learned there.

To My Mom

It was something that I already knew--that if you are open to it, there are so many things to be learned every day--but now that time seems to be so concentrated, the learning is more important, more poignant more essential to pass on so that others may benefit as well. A lesson that I learned from my mother, of blessed memory, and that was brought home again to me yesterday, is how much better off we are to let go of the small hurts, the petty angers, the negatives of all kinds and move ahead with life and with love. Who among us has not suffered a bully, a mean girl, a disappointing relationship? Of course all of us have. If you are human and have relationships with other humans, you are bound to be disappointed by some of them. But it is not what ‘they’ do that is important, but rather what I do with it. Mom was one for moving on. If there was a problem, talk it out, wrangle it down, say sorry, or curse, or whatever, but in the end, let it go, because the reiterating, the re-chewing, the endless review of all the slights, the slings and arrows, if held too closely, poison us in the end. My mom was a person who made and kept friends easily. Today she is remembered fondly by those who knew her. She had an open heart and while by no means an angel, she was a pretty happy woman. She had a great laugh, which she wasn’t afraid to use, and she loved to gossip, but never in a mean way. But the best thing about Mom was that she was always open to amends. And she passed that on to my brother and to me, and we learned that you were not giving up your soul if you had to say “I’m sorry” but rather the opposite. You were recovering your soul and moving on. Sure there are some things that no amends on earth can make right, so you pack up your old kit bag and move on. But what my mom taught us that while you are packing, if you are actually leaving, be sure to leave the problem behind on the side of the road. If you take it along, you might as well not leave at all. I also learned that there was no problem so great that there did not exist a remedy. Especially if the relationship was worth keeping. And often the remedy was a simple “sorry, I made a mistake”, or a declaration that something that happened was hurtful, so that the other person could offer the same “sorry, I made a mistake”. Neither holding on to the hurt, nor to the righteous justification that ‘after all I was right’ does anything to bring or to keep loving people together. While my Mom was very far from a pacifist, as I reflect on the things I learned from her, I am astounded at her wisdom. She was a great role model in so many ways. She was not a dreamer, and I think that the way she thought, the way she organized, her efficiency, were great things to watch and learn, although I was not so admiring when I was the child in her home, wanting and needing to dream. There was very little wasted motion in my mom’s life. Her household ran like a top. It was ready to receive guests at a moment’s notice--no last minute pick-up needed. She scheduled fun and respite into her life and maintained the social closeness with others that social scientists today are just learning are so essential to good health. She had her weekly mah jongg group every Tuesday for forty or more years (something we used to laugh about as kids), and encouraged my dad to have his weekly pinochle game. Saturday nights meant gathering for a light meal, or coffee and cake in the home of one of their regular group—no restaurants involved. And just like fun was ever present, so was the imperative that we never forget those less fortunate. When the old itinerant white bearded Rabbi came to our house to collect the dime banks for Israel that he had left the month before, my mother always invited him in, gave him coffee and a fresh biscocho, and let him rest a while on his rounds. The lives of the depression generation was far from easy, but they were also the generation of the post war boom, and it is easy to see that life in their circle could be filled with smiles and laughter, friendship, family, picnics, and innocent good times. My mother, fun loving, could never be described as carefree, because life was hard. But she was the embodiment of any positivity that part of me today. She taught us the lessons that I so value today, always practical, always with an eye toward healing, toward keeping the family together, toward keeping any small rift from becoming an impassible gorge. So today, Mom, the day we remember you each year with Kaddish, I will not be in synagogue because I cannot, but your granddaughters will be there, carrying on the tradition of Remembrance, and honoring your memory. I will be home, thinking of you, and reflecting on how lucky has been my life, not in any small way, because you were my mother and took the time and heart to teach me the value of letting go.

Wherever You Go...

I had a plan, a blueprint, a route, a map, a trajectory that was supposed to take me into old age. I was comfortable with that plan. A plan doesn’t usually have imbedded in it surprises or shocks that knock the traveler off course. Of course there are sometimes roadblocks, but those can be gotten around, rerouted, and the destination essentially remains the same, with perhaps a bit more time added on for the detour. You will arrive at your destination, essentially the same, only a bit later. Say you are driving from New York to California in April. Weather can be unpredictable, and while you are sometimes driving in a southerly direction, the overall picture is that you are going West. Snowed in in Amarillo Texas? Watch the farm report on TV and add two days to the trip. Those two extra days that you planned to relax in Las Vegas? Well you’d rather just keep moving and start your new chapter. But whatever happened on the trip was simply a detour, a diversion, a sidetrack and getting back to the plan was always in the program. Until now. There I was, happily traveling the planned route when I fell into a sinkhole. Now the whole character of the trip has changed. I am no longer free to change destinations. I am on a whole new road with plenty of road signs, plenty of traffic cops, but nothing looks familiar. [I have got to get out of this traffic metaphor!] The whole point of it was to say that just like Dr. Suess so aptly said: Wherever you go, there you are. I did not ‘come’ here, but I am here nevertheless. And now I have to see the lay of the land. The last month that I have spent in denial, not that I have cancer, but of what I must do to accommodate this new state of health, has not been wasted. I got sick, and realizing that I cannot afford to be cavalier about where I go and what I do, how I deal with the people I see, was an expensive and rather unpleasant lesson. But it is pretty ordinary, no? We go to a new place, not necessarily being familiar with the local customs or the shortcuts, blunder around for a while, make some mistakes, pay for them, and then finally settle into the local ways. I sat back as others spoke of their journeys with cancer, and thought complacently ‘well, that’s not going to happen to me’ but I learned that I have no real say in that and no immunity. What will happen will, and I will have to get used to the idea that I will have to deal with it. I am learning to negotiate a new country, one in which I have some control, but not nearly as much as I thought I did. I am learning that each new day may have a new challenge, but it may also reveal a new part of my own, or someone else’s character. I am learning to let go of the things that I knew for sure, like how certain things were supposed to be done, and to embrace the things that others, out of a sense of good will and lovingkindness, are willing to do for me. I am learning that I am not the only one who can do certain things, and that there are things that I need to teach others to do so that they can do them too and carry on without me. I am learning to relax when I have no other choice, and I am learning that I am not an addict if I take a pill now and then for its prescribed purpose. I guess I am learning how to be a more grateful human being, even though I was pretty grateful before. Appreciative Living is an art that we are called on to perfect every day. When our pins are knocked out from under us, it’s hard to regain our balance. It has taken me a couple of months. I expect that each day will be its own test. But here in this new country, I will be watching for the vista points, and the parks, and hoping that I don’t have to pull from too far down to get to the appreciation.

Lessons on Trajectory

Over the past couple of months, I have learned many humbling lessons. The first is that whatever life trajectory you think you are on, you can be knocked off in a flash, and laid lower that you imagined possible. I recall when we moved to southern CA from the Bay area, a bit over twenty years ago, we had experienced the Loma Prieta earthquake there, the confusion, the loss of services for a while, the fear, and the aftermath. I vowed then never to be caught unprepared. I was co-chair of the earthquake preparedness committee for our local school, and we did the research, bought the equipment, found the storage space so that everything would be accessible, and we felt prepared. We had drills, teacher meetings, teams, and the whole nine yards. So when we left the Bay Area, I collected all of my necessary earthquake supplies for my new home in TO. Then the Northridge quake struck, and I remember crying out loud, “but I’m not ready yet”. Fortunately unhurt, I got my butt in gear and finished my preparations, got all of the necessary materials together, and was again (kind of) prepared. The question is: are we ever really prepared for what life throws at us? You go along as if every day will be like the last, and then a loved one becomes ill, or there is an unexpected death, or even worse, an expected death, one that you thought you were prepared to handle, one that might even be a mercy, and again, in your head, you say “but I’m not ready yet”. In your daily routine, there is room for the odd head cold, a sprained ankle, but no one is ever ready for a tragic auto accident, or a Boston Marathon bomber, curse him forever. My trajectory was set. I was a high energy, positive person, getting many many things done each day, enjoying life, smiling at every stranger, and fitting in the intermittent appointments that we all deal with: teeth cleaning, podiatrist, dermatologist, yearly mammogram, and then going on about our business as if these screenings were all meaningless tests to just get out of the way. This year, I had to postpone my annual mammogram, which I usually have in December, because I was sick and took the first available appointment in January. Within three days, my personal trajectory was a matter of memory, and I was traveling a new road. A suspicious lymph node had been found. New tests were required, not some time in the future, but NOW. The first surgery told the tale of breast cancer. Decisions to be made, how extensive a surgery, who to see, what to do. My brother, a doctor who had succumbed to cancer the year before was the person I always depended on to help me make decisions. I felt lost, not to mention angry. My second surgery was scheduled, performed, an oncologist joined the team, and I was on a road I never imagined. My life of perfectionism was going to have to take a back seat to this new trajectory. I was going to have to leave the “doing” to others, and not only that, how ever they managed to do whatever it was that needed doing, would just have to be sufficient. Many things have changed for me over the last couple of months. My husband has taken over my care and the running of the house. He has been an angel. I have learned to sit when others are doing stuff. I have also learned that if something gets done, not necessarily the way I would do it, but done all the same, that is just fine. I have learned that the warnings I have received from doctors and other experienced patients do not mean “everyone but me”, that I too must heed the signals, or suffer the consequences. I am sure that there will be other humbling lessons ahead, but I hope that I will take to them with greater ease that I have in the past. I will be telling you what I learn as I go along.

Today on the menu

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was “you go along thinking…….” And then when I decided that this would be the beginning of my blog today, I thought I would depersonalize it and say instead “one goes along thinking….” But as the hours since I woke up have passed, I realized that I have little idea what YOU go along thinking, and as for what ONE goes along thinking, this is only conjecture, so instead I decided that I would say “I have always gone along thinking that I essentially know who I am,” and as I have ‘matured’ (i.e. gotten older), I have known myself better and better, so that what I could imagine that what I was thinking was true. Today, I had a revelation, that who I thought I was, how I happened to form thoughts, and how I looked at and negotiated the world was definitely not set in my character and unlikely to be affected by outside forces. I am learning every day that outside forces are making me doubt all the things that I thought I knew about myself. Previously, when I had a new experience, whether positive or negative, I would study and learn about it, I would find a book about it and be at peace with the changes, because I would ostensibly ‘understand’ them. Also in time gone by, I was possessed of a generally happy mood, always a smile, and plenty of energy to tackle my list of things to do. My highly organized personality, and adherence to my mother’s teaching made me prepared for almost any eventuality. I had extra stashes of tissues, t.p, canned goods, paper goods, even little amusements for visiting children, not to mention organized earthquake supplies and water. What I did not have was a way to deal with the runaway train of a disturbing and frightening diagnosis of breast cancer. Suddenly I was in the midst of a maelstrom that just did not end. No planning, no thinking ahead, no advance preparation made me ready to hear that I was now going to begin a new chapter for which I had no plans or preparations. There was no time to read or reflect before I boarded that train that was whisking me so fast into unknown territory, with little guidance and less experience. The train entered many dark tunnels that I was sure would never end, and then they did, and I had the light of friends who wished me well, the love and caring of my husband, who had previously known mostly how to be the patient, and my daughters, who, in the midst of creating their own places in the world, are also loving and caring and certainly almost as afraid as I am. What I was not prepared for was the ups and downs of mood, depending on how I had slept, and what I was able to eat, and how the healing was progressing. Bumps in the road throw me into abject depression, something I have not suffered from in the past, until I can get some rest or relief from pain. The days that I think that I simply cannot face what is ahead leave me limp and a stranger to myself. I always thought I could face with courage what came my way. I don’t feel courageous, I feel uncertain and afraid at times, and I have found myself looking to rely on outside support, something I have seldom sought in the past. I have realized something that perhaps I should have known, or perhaps nobody knows until they have to, that there is no yesterday, and no tomorrow, there is only today and making the best we can of it. Yesterday, after an unanticipated medical procedure, I just wanted to be taken care of by my mom, who has been gone for eight years. She would, in my imagination, have known just what to do, but certainly no more than my loving and caring Bob, who is feeling his way around in the dark trying to help my in any way he can. When I propose a new way for me to be able to do Passover so that I can accomplish it, he is on board. When I ask him to go shopping, or to help me, he is on the spot, and he has become a pro at keeping the kitchen as straightened up as possible. So here is what I know for sure, that appreciating what we have today—a caring spouse, a good night’s sleep, a knowledgeable doctor—is something I can get my mind around, even if it takes me a day or two to realize it. Yesterday is gone, for good or ill--let it go. Tomorrow is at best iffy, with the unknown looming, and we may get there or not. But today is golden. Today is what there is. Today can be what I make of it. Whether raining or sunny, whether hot or cold, if I put my mind to looking for it, I will find the good in today, because, it’s all that’s on the menu. So, Worry about that other stuff tomorrow, Scarlett.