I am making Shabbos, peeling apples for an apple crumble and
some fruit salad. Separating the eggs for some ice-cream,
browning the turkey roll for a succulently herby Friday night
treat. Oh! I am making Shabbos, changing the medley of raw
ingredients in my shopping basket into Shabbos worthy
tastes.
It has been such a long time since I last stood here doing my
once weekly taken-for-granted chores. Thursday comes and you
make Shabbos — what else would you do? Yet Thursday
came a few weeks ago and I realized that I just couldn't make
it. The chemotherapy I was having just overwhelmed me and
then the flu and I SOSed it to my family. Help! I can't make
Shabbos.
What a bunch, what nachas, my daughters-in-law and my
boys took over. Cooked, cleaned and pampered while I lay in
my bed or sat in the rocking chair, watching my boys banter
and frolic away as they made my Shabbos for me. Sometimes,
I'm sure you've felt it, with eyes half closed and aching
back, you've surely thought — "Oh! wouldn't it be nice
if someone would just come and take over and let me go to
bed!" Sometimes you might even have resented some of the
work, some of the chores, as you are rinsing off yet another
sinkload of dirty dishes. Yet, yet when you can't do it, when
you really can't even peel the first potato, Oh! how you long
to be up, fighting time and tiredness to produce a Shabbos.
As the minutes drag with unused time, you wonder "What did I
use to do ? I never seemed to have enough time. I used to go
to bed so late. I used to be so busy. How do I fill a whole
day? What shall I do next?
Somehow this chemo-therapy has thrown my whole world out. I
stare into space, my body doing stranger things to me by the
minute. I am in pain, I am in a tiredness state. Give me
myself back, predictable, functional, and useful to mankind
in general and my family in particular. Flu and chemotherapy
certainly didn't mix but even when the thermometer went back
down to a reassuring 98.4 (oh! all right then, 37), my energy
resources were still depleted. I didn't have the
sitzfleish to read and read. I didn't want to relax
and listen to Torah tapes or music. I saved up the dishes and
the laundry-folding as a treat to relieve the monotonous
boring sameness of my woozy unfunctioning state.
Friends came to chivvy me on. "Go back to writing," "Start
doing again."
Finally the chemo finished. I didn't exactly bounce back to
health. It was a struggle which was taking far too long.
Yet now I am making Shabbos and I am wondering what lessons I
have learned. That life is precious and every second is
important, that the ordinary chores of the day-to-day are
rare beautiful opportunities. Yet perhaps even more important
are the practicalities of how to deal with such a
debilitating time. How could I have done it differently, how
could I have prevented myself from so completely losing my
direction, my focus, myself?
I think it's a matter of pacing. A matter of being realistic
about the limitations and being imaginative in the search for
a new focus, one that is in the range of possibilities. I
tried to fight the physical effects of chemo. To get on with
my life as if nothing was unusual. I fought and tried to deny
my symptoms. Every time I was forced to 'scale down,' I felt
a failure, angry with myself, angry at the chemo.
I should have planned a sort of holiday. Not tried to cope
despite it all but instead to play another role. If I had
been willing and ready to 'let go,' I would have managed to
listen through Torah tape after Torah tape. Perhaps I could
have filled photo albums with our scattered disordered boxes
of photographs. Perhaps I would have managed to teach myself
how to touch-type. Perhaps, at my best moments, I could have
read books to my children and grandchildren. Perhaps I could
have continued writing.
I needed to accept. I needed to be realistic, not to give up
on myself but to choose to play a gentler role. I needed to
stop running, take a back seat and fill the wakeful hours I
did have things that had meaning, things that were worth
waking up for.
After the chemotherapy your hair grows back, your energy
returns, it becomes almost, as my surgeon said, like a bad
dream. But a bad dream can be a present. It gives you that
'back to square one' perspective.
I am making Shabbos! YIPPEE!!!!!
