It's Christmas morning,

George woke up at 5AM (not because of Christmas just because that's when he's been waking), Fred got up with him and I slept until 7AM when June got up and then Fred went back to sleep for a couple of hours and now we're all up and Fred is downstairs with the kids eating his omelette while they play "Cariboo" and I sneak off to write a bit.

I feel openhearted. I haven't sent cards or even an email message out but I am sending loving energy to all of my friends who are celebrating today, to all of the soldiers who are away and not with their families, to children and families who are struggling today, to people in the hospital, to people in my life who have helped me and whom I have lost touch with and are maybe disappointed in me.

I am more able to watch my mind this Christmas morning than I ever was in years past and notice when I am stuck in racing thoughts. I am more able to quiet my mind and meditate on qualities like love. I am better able to notice changes in my body as I change my mind.

Some days, that is. Yesterday was a long day for me; it was the kids' first day of winter break and we had no plans. It is too cold and snowy here to be outside much. George was really rammy, his energy just never settled no matter what activity I tried. Being inside with an overactive child felt annoying and draining.

Noticing that, I didn't take myself to a place of judgement. I just acknowledged that's how my day was going and that's how I was feeling. Fred came home from work early (at 5PM) to support me and when the kids went to bed we watched "The Wrestler" which I had been wanting to see for a year.

I am feeling so open and shifted today, maybe because of the support, the self-care, the sleep, knowing Fred is here with me today and tomorrow we have plans to go see my sister and family. I think it is more, though; I think being in that annoyed, crappy state of mind yesterday without judging it is what's created the shift.

I am incredibly grateful that I am becoming more mindful of my funny mind and the thoughts that churn through it.

When I came downstairs this morning, George was still full of that excess energy. We sat on the couch together and did a lot of physical play--clapping, rocking back and forth singing "Row, Row, Your Boat." His eyes were sparkling and he engaged with me for a long time and sang a lot. I imagine his soul saying to me Mommy, this is what I needed. Thank you for tuning in and giving it to me.

I can see that in the past few years. having a child with autism has been a great motivator for me to turn inward and turn to my energy and intuition more, especially because so often George can't express to me what he needs or how he is feeling.

But I also recognize that this past year of facing my cancer and getting rid of it has lead me to know that tuning into my energy and working on living mindfully is neccessary not just for George's sake, but for my own.

I want to live a happy life. Being present and open is allowing that to happen. I see now just how much I wanted to control my happiness before, to make the happiness happen. And how devastating it was when suffering happened, like George's autism being diagnosed.

And now I get that the hard, challenging things that happen in our life are part of the nature of life and that every human being suffers and feels fear. And that my response to what manifests in my life is the gateway to happiness; not a fake response, not "be positive." No. My response is now "be present." Notice what I am feeling. Notice what I am thinking. Notice conflicts that I create in my mind. Notice that I am feeling annoyed as hell.

Notice the beauty of being with my husband and children this Christmas morning, notice how it feels to be here with an open heart.

Notice my prayers. Notice the gifts in my life, the incredible community of friends, the work that keeps opening up for me, the synchronicity, the doctors who helped me to get well, Rabbi Yael and Rabbi Linda.

One moment at a time is what I need to show up for. That's all.
***
Last weekend there was a huge snowstorm here and everything closed down including my work so I actually get three weekends off in a row instead of two. What a GIFT! It was snowing when we woke up Saturday morning and it never stopped all day, it snowed into Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I loved the hush of everything. I loved looking into the sky. I thought of other snowstorms in my life, especially of the snowy January and February that followed George's birth and how I wrapped him in layers of onesies and sweaters and snowsuits and put him in the baby bjorn so I could take him out with me just for a little fresh air and how a walk around the block was an incredible adventure and how I could feel his breath and gurgles against my chest and how I wrapped my arms around the baby bjorn and pressed him close against me. And how I remember and savor that delicious moment now because there I was, totally present, feeling the wind, the cold, and the love for my child.

And I thought about snowstorms when I was a child and how everything stopped in the big open of our backyard, set out in the mountains and how I would make snow angels and look into the sky and in the quiet there, I lost myself into the sky, into the falling snow. That quiet, that consciousness, is the place I ran away from, not knowing what to call it, not knowing that others felt it, too. It is the place that

am returning to in all weather, my life as part of an ongoing consciousness, part of the sky, the falling snow, the disappointments and suffering of all people and the release of all disappointments and suffering. Here I am, letting tears come and fall onto my keyboard, here I am writing it down.

Here I am, Christmas morning ( I need to get the kids dressed now and we're going out to the movies soon), wide awake.

A week and a half ago it was 60 degrees out

and sunny; it was Thursday, the day I keep June home from preschool so that we can have June-Mommy time. We walked to the Elkins Park library and stopped at Elkins Perk for bagels with cream cheese on the way home. Being with June on a sunny day in December filled me with joy and when we arrived back home it was about 1PM and we still had a couple of hours until it was time to get George from school so we planted tulip bulbs that I had been meaning to plant for about a month and a half. I dug the wholes and June plopped in the bulbs and covered them with dirt

and I remembered how one of my first blog entries last march right after my surgery was about taking a walk George and noticing tulips and daffodils sprouting up in my yard and not remembering having planted the bulbs the previous fall. And there I was, with my garden gloves on, digging in the dirt with June, the sun shining on our backs and shoulders, laughing with her as she dangled worms between her fingers, thinking

I've arrived. I'm here right now, I'm in my life, breathing and laughing and being with June...whereas a year ago in this kind of moment, I know that my mind would have not only been circling around my to-do list but also be reminding me of all the things that I hadn't done right or well or thinking about people whom I "owed" a phone call to or ruminating about some mistake I'd made at work.

And now, the blessing that is coming out of my contemplative practice is noticing how my mind works, so that I can turn it off or at least be aware of it so that racing thoughts can't stop me from soaking in the sun and dirt and the joy of being with my daughter

who marvels at worms and how they squirm and how one can become two worms.

Having survived cancer, I am sure as hell not willing to let my anxieties or perfectionism rob me from living my life.
****
For the last two weeks or so, I've bundled up the kids in hats and coats at 5PM and taken them out for a brisk walk before dinner. George really needs physical activity to settle his sensory system and the fresh air does us all good. Entering the winter making a conscious effort to move my body is one of the ways that I'm hoping to fend off the usual seasonal depression that sets in for me about this time of year.

We look at our neighbors' Christmas lights. George gets fascinated by blinking lights and stops to gaze at them and jumps up and down. I wish he could describe to me how he's seeing it because I can tell that it is very magical for him.

June wants to celebrate Christmas this year, even though I've explained that Chanukah is our tradition. Sending her to a Jewish preschool can only do so much, Christmas is everywhere. It makes perfect developmental sense to me that it's hard for her to distinguish between "ours" and "theirs" and I'm trying to be low-key about it and not make a big deal about the distinction and focus on making warm Chanukah memories that will become part of her foundation.

There is one house we walk by that is the best: it's got a yard full of dancing santas, trees wrapped like candy canes and a glowing creche scene, complete with camels and the three wise men on their way to see Baby Jesus.

The first day we saw it, June asked me if she could sing a chanukah song to Santa(s). I said sure and she launched into a very dramatic rendition of "S'vivon, Sov, Sov" ("Spin Drydel") at the top of her lungs. We said good-night to the santas and walked over towards the creche scene. June asked me who the baby was and I said baby Jesus and that Christmas is his birthday and June said who is the Mommy and Daddy and I said Mary and Joseph and they are so happy that there baby is with them just how I was so happy when I got to hold baby George and baby June because you both were my dreams and then God brought you both to me.

And Georgie, who hadn't said anything for at least an hour and was jumping up and down as if his body was receiving electrical charge from the lights, started singing the song from Barney I love you, You love me, We're a happy family...

and it's not like he watches Barney or anything and we probably hadn't sang that song for a year maybe and he pulled it out, there in front of baby Jesus and he sang it beautifully, the whole thing.

And I don't know if his singing was the miracle of the moment or that June stayed quiet and let him sing or that I was alive and well holding my two babies mittened hands or that God had brought us all together, the four of us, our happy family

but I did thank God for my expanding heart, for all of my blessings, and for the beautiful story

of that baby, which evokes love and hope in my heart.
***
And that I'll figure out how to say to June that religion is a metaphor and that Judaism is our culture, a beautiful and complicated civilization with a language, food, ethics, traditions, etc. that we can draw strength and wisdom from.

But God, I offer to both of my kids, is the consciousness inside of us, around us, connecting us. God is our breath, our awareness. You don't have to know anything to access God; God is there, God is holding us.

I am so much more gentle and loving to myself now. I can see myself more clearly because I am not afraid to see my life clearly, its deep challenges and its blessings.

I am thankful to light my little Chanukah candles this December, this Hebrew month of Kislev, and watch them rather quickly melt. I may only have a moment or two to notice them because someone is whining to open presents now or needs their special holiday kiddush cup filled with more apple juice, but that moment is enough right now. To have one moment and really experience the candle's light allows it to stay with me when it is dark and gone.

At our Thanksgving dinner

when everyone had come to the table, plates full from the bountiful buffet at the U.S. Hotel in Hollidaysburg, PA, where I grew up, where my parents live, all twelve of us--Mom, Dad, Sabba, Julie, Gal, Ben, Jake, Max, Fred, George, June and me--Gal raised his glass and everyone put their forks down and stopped talking and Gal said we are thankful to God for everyone's health and for everyone being here and Aunt Gabby is my hero. She has been through a hard time this year and they way she went through it makes her my hero.

Tears came to my eyes and to Gal's when our eyes met; I was incredibly moved by his sincere expression and his acknowledgement of what my year has been and how I've experienced it. I don't know if I take in the idea of "hero" which seems kind of exaggerrated to me, but I would say to Gal, maybe I am a model? and I will accept that

because I think I can tell you what it is that I've been trying to write about all of these months and what I've learned and what I'm living:

that God is with us in suffereing; that life is a mystery; that challenging stuff comes at us, it's just the nature of the world that we live in. That being present to the suffering, not running or escaping from it is powerful. That being present to the suffering alleviates the suffering.

That here I am, a 38-year-old woman who fills blessed, full of hope, energy and optimism, even as I say that my life is full of daily challenges: managing Type 1 diabetes, working to remediate my son's autism, which goes through phases where things are working well and then phases where things just aren't. That I made it through cancer and cancer treatment and now have a stronger commitment to build a life of physical, emotional and spiritual health and that I have discovered to do so, I need to not run from subconsious thoughts or fears but let them surface and acknowledge them.

and that a sense of inner happiness can be there, even when the outside of my life is complicated, hard and messy. Which is how it feels some days, it how it feels today, in fact, with George being off his gluten-free diet and not sleeping well for two nights now. Which is how it feels now, sitting inmy pajamas, needing to shower, pay bills and straighten up the house. Today I'm sitting with the frustration of George not sleeping and even though we've been here before, where George's behavior and regulation goes off when his diet is off, it still feels like it's going to be a lot of work to get him on track and I desparately want to be on the other side, where's he's sleeping and functioning well again.

And yet, that being said, I feel so totally different from how I might have felt a year ago. I am still feeling what is happiness and well-being, knowing that the frustration is just a feeling, even writing that now, it is leaving me.

I'm going to shower now and go take a walk. It's cloudy out, overcast, around 50 degrees. While I walk, I am going to try and focus on my breath and meditate on peace and see what thoughts and feelings come up and out of my mind and then I'll try to return to my breath,

it's a process, I haven't become a monk or something or a spiritual superhero for goodness sake, but I have gotten closer to living the life that I want to live and I am going to keep writing because I don't think that I expressed it exactly today as I'm feeling it.

Happiness is inner and my life doesn't need to be perfect or fill anyone else's longings. I am responsible for my happiness. The place where I am empty out and breath is where I feel God entering me, supporting me on cold, cloudy days.

This time of year I have often become mildly depressed,

sometimes with consciousness of it and sometimes not, and right now I can feel my body shift into a kind of slow, hibernational mode, but I'm not depressed at all. I feel very close to God and very grateful. I feel very clear. I feel like my practice of being present is taking hold in a very powerful way, my practice of noticing. It's been 5 weeks now that my life has been out of any regular order, first the lice, then George's surgery, then George's recovery, then this week June's been sick. All of my plans stop and start; adjustments have to be made. Frustration and exhaustion has welled up in me. And then I've noticed those feelings of frustration or exhaustion, and I've emptied them from my body. I've breathed in and felt myself surrounded by God's presence, held, open to receiving blessings in the midst of what's going on. Just really, after cancer, the imperfections of life are just imperfections of life.

And actually I want to stop saying after cancer, referring to my experiences now as "after cancer," because it's more than that I am a survivor, it's actually about the process, the way that I survived. Which is that I went through cancer allowing myself to be vulnerable and in that place, I opened to God with a faith and trust that I hadn't gone to before. I'm ready to own that now, thank you very much.

And I know that surrender maybe sounds like letting go of control and I know that you may be reading this thinking sure she feels close to God, who doesn't call out for God in those liminal moments, when the border between death and life are so unclear and

to that I want to say I don't think that I could have understood this experience before it happened and to that I say that I have felt God's presence with me since I was a child and never knew how to articulate it exactly and to that I say I have always been a seeker and to that I say I am finally able to write and talk about God with no self consciousness, even if maybe here, now, struggling to write what I've been feeling I'm not making much sense?

Am I? Maybe I can come back to this feeling and maybe I can make more sense of it or write in images, write a poem. Now I just want to capture it, to say that in late October and early November 2009, as the days started getting darker and as my son went under anesthesia, twice, and then back to the hospital again, that during that time, I felt held up by God and surrounded by love and the purpose of my life became clearer.
***
A blessing that I want to record: Sandra, Fred's sister, has been around and helping us with child care quite a lot. It has been the hugest blessing. Sandra told me something June said the other day that made me feel like I am being the mother that I want to be: Sandra had trouble working the VCR and said she was sorry to the kids that she couldn't get their movie on. June said to her, "That's okay, Aunt San, my mommy says it's okay to make mistakes."

Because so much of what is happening in me now is about forgiveness, I just felt so elated to hear June internalizing and applying this idea that we all make mistakes.

For me, I see that one of my biggest mistakes has been constantly pushing myself to do, to achieve, to act, which has taken me out of being fully present in my life. I am saying now that I have been complicit in that mistake and in noticing this tendency, I have been able to catch myself. And forgive myself when I go of course, which I do almost daily.

June, I should say, is just becoming so totally herself; so magical and imaginative, so loving and outgoing and spunky. I want to give her so much, I want to protect her. I want her never to hide her voice or feel away from God. And I know I can only do so much and that she's at the beginning of her own, wild ride.

But I hope her seeing my happiness in my imperfect life will inspire her to keep at it, keep at her joy and bliss which seem to rise up and meet her wherever she goes.

George's surgery is behind us;

it was a slow two weeks, we were at CHOP more than we would have liked, but he's healing now, ready to get back to school on Monday. What a blessing that Sandra, Fred's sister, has been around and able to help out with the kids a lot. We could be at the hospital with George, knowing completely that June was in great hands with Sandra. And the people at CHOP, every one of them, every nurse, doctor, food service person, custodian, they are just friendly and kind and courteous and made being there as easy as it could be.

And I let myself be very present for George while we were there and while he recovered. We watched a lot of Food network TV together and cuddled. I mostly did well at not worrying about all of the projects that I need to organize in the house and about my work that I wasn't doing. After going through cancer treatment, I know now that I don't have to expect perfection of myself and I know that the world goes on even when I fuck up a little here and there...

and I know maybe that sounds a little bit obvious and trite but for me, it's been revolutionary. Allowing myself to make mistakes, allowing myself to be patient when things take a long time, doctors with their discharge papers, for example, I know now that I have some control in how I react and how I react can impact my reality. I can be in CHOP, waiting from 6:30AM to 11:30AM waiting for the nurse practitioner to sign off with George's discharge instructions that Dr. Tom gave me orally at 6:30AM, and I can be grateful for George's healing--or I can just be pissed off that it's taking so long. I meditated consciously on being grateful and I felt so much happier as a result even when feelings of being pissed off surfaced; I could look at them and say "I'm pissed off" and watch that feeling float away...

The mindfulness practice that I've been cultivating is mostly about noticing what I'm feeling and I'm realizing how in any situation, I'm internalizing the practice--

yesterday afternoon I got George in his coat and out in the backyard for some air. I sat in a green folding lawn chair, clutching my hot green tea while the wind blew against me. I closed my eyes against the sun shining and everything was white and for the first time since his surgery I could hear George singing. I felt how present I was to that moment--to the sun, the wind, to George's singing--all of it against the backdrop of everything that I hadn't done or accomplished in the two weeks that I had been caring for George since his surgery. I knew that all of that "stuff" was there but I was able to ignore it and embrace where I was.

A very close, dear, old friend of mine is in rehab right now. I found out a week ago, I found out about her alcoholism a week ago, and she hasn't been out of my mind since. Memories surfacing of our girlhoods together; memories of her father getting ill and dying when we were in high school. I can still see and smell the church that Sunday in June where his mass was held, St. Mary's in Hollidaysburg, and everyone gathering back at the house after the service to eat and the two of us drinking wine from boxes in plastic cups.

I remember the emotions of that day and I remember my girlfriend holding back, holding it in, holding herself together. They're just feelings, I think, remembering her and remembering her dad

and remembering her mom, who passed too, about eight years after that, of what, of drinking, they're just feelings, I think to myself as the sun against my closed eyes makes everything white, in my backyard, in Elkins Park, with my son, nearing seven years old, singing something intangible, what?

Then my eyes open, stinging with tears, Georgie, what are you singing?
My eyes open, stinging with tears, George, I want to know. I want to know what you're singing, what you're thinking.
I miss my friend and I miss all that I've missed, the years of her drinking and suffering and me, not picking up the phone.

(Why do we suffer this way--alone? They're only feeling, feelings--)

They are just feelings I say out loud wiping tears in the cold wind, taking George in to get warm the sun going down, approaching evening, November, dinner to make, calls to return.

Holy Motherfucker,

June got sent home from preschool this week because of nits (that's baby lice eggs for you uninitiated) and Fred and I became psychotic. We've dealt with a lot recently, my cancer and its treatment; finding the right kindergarten for our autistic son. We've dealt pretty well and pretty calmly; we haven't let our fears take hold of us and squeeze us. We've gone on living and laughing and seizing the day.

But nits--Motherfucker! Scrubbing our four-year-old's hair with chemicals and combing through each strand with a finetooth comb and washing every single linen, pillow, pillow case, blanket, jacket, stuffed animal in hot water...ad nauseum because the treatment didn't work, she got sent home from school again and then we found them on George's scalp and then we took them and got them both haircuts as short as we could and then June decided she was a boy and we just kept washing every damn thing in the house and trying to work and using natural nit remedies like bathing the kids in vinegar.

Motherfucker. I'm sorry if this sounds facetious because I don't mean it to be at all but nits have been harder for us to deal with than cancer. And I'm just now, thinking they're gone, the nits, thinking they're gone, laughing at that. A little bit.
****
It's been a funny few weeks of post-cancerness. I've been receiving things--cards and presents--from people who weren't present for me during my cancer experience. First came a package from a mom of a boy who went to preschool with George for two years whom I had developed a close friendship with and then had stopped talking to me about a year ago because she was "going through things and couldn't deal." That was a strange, hard experience for me because if I can say one thing about myself, I'm a good friend. I'd never had someone do that to me before. I won't rehash it all except to say that it was very painful for me and I've let it go and then there comes a package from her a few weeks ago with jewelry for me and a video for the kids and a note.

And then a few days later a long heartfelt letter from a friend of a friend saying how sorry she was that she hadn't been there for me and wishing me well.

And then more jewelry, beautiful earrings and a necklace, from a congregant at the synagogue where I work who had been one of the few people who hadn't written me a note or email while I was going through surgery and treatment to say that I was in her prayers.

And then a brisket. From another congregant. Who saw my post-chemo haircut and apologized for not reading her emails from our "Acts of Caring" list and wanted to know what was going on while I was in the middle of an activity with a large group of students. When I said that I couldn't talk just then, she left the room looking flustered. I went back to my office after school and found a large brisket on my desk with a note from her.

Now this part has been comical. Because I didn't need any of these people to be with me during my cancer experience; I have people close to me, very close, who were incredibly present. So I am able sit back and watch these delayed reactions in an unattached way. And accept their gifts.
****
Monday morning George is having surgery. It's routine; ear tubes in, tonsils and adenoids out. We've been through the ear tubes before at CHOP and I am grateful that we discovered that he needs them again and also his tonsils and adenoids out. It won't be easy, the surgery and recovery for him, but he is my love and I am holding how good this will be for his health on the other side of recovery. If you pray, pray for him. Hold him in light and affirm that he will go through surgery with ease. George is my baby and this coming week will be another one that won't be easy for us.

But easier, I think, than the motherfucking nits.

I'm deep in life after cancer now;

it feels different, I feel different. It's hard to explain...

at Yom Kippur, I really felt the difference, in a surprising, wonderful way. I lead three services in a row and can have up to 70 kids in a service. A lot of them don't want to be there and I work hard to figure out a way to make the day meaningful for them. Usually this means creating skits and characters and all sorts of shtick. But this year, I hadn't put in hours and hours making props and costumes to teach the children about being helpful instead of hurtful, about forgiveness and letting go. I just spoke to them and prayed with them. When we prayed, for example, after the Barchu, for God who creates light and darkness and all things in the world, I told the children that light and darkness means what we see outside of us in nature, but also the light and darkness we feel inside of us, that was created by God, that is holy, those moments of us feeling the darkness. The kids were so with me and maybe something resonated in some of them.

In life after cancer, I am relying less on performing or entertaining; I am trusting more that my inner sense of strength will lead me through difficult, stressful, challenging moments.

In life after cancer, I am not expecting myself to be perfect at all; I can more easily say I'm sorry when I fuck up and then I let go of my mistake without obsessing about it.

In life after cancer I am seizing two hours after school every weekday when I am with the kids, 3:30--5:30pm, and I try to be on the phone or computer only if I have to be, and I make that time to be as present as I can with them, with what's happening in that moment. We've had some awesome times playing outside in these cooler autumn afternoons,

a kind of coming back to ourselves, of grounding, after whatever has happened in the day for us. For George, that could be lots of feelings that he can't express, all of the energies of the teachers and kids that he's been with all day, his own frustrations--

and so for two hours or so, I focus on being openhearted and it's been a kind of nourishing recovery time for all of us.

Some moments have been so beautiful like last Thursday afternoon when we stopped by our CSA to pick up our fruit share of Golden Delicious apples and the sky was strikingly blue with giant white clouds and the three of us held hands and ran up and down the big green hill in front of Kol Ami synagogue

and I felt overwhelmed with joy--to be alive, to be running hand and hand with my children, to be part supporting an organic farm, to celebrate Sukkot, to live in a neighborhood that we love.

I still have a shitload of things to do, projects to organize, finances to get in order, queries to send out.

Not a lot has shifted externally for me at all, even though I feel different in my own skin, now that my cancer is gone and

I imagine in the next few years, there will be profound external shifts. (Wouldn't there have to be? With all of this internal shifting happening?)

I am clarifying some really big dreams now.

The difference that I'm trying to describe, which is hard to describe, is the way I'm reaching out for my dreams. It's not my old way of getting over pumped on adrenaline and caffeine. I'm trying to go for balance, in just a day to day way, one hour at a time, more or less. Some days I feel much more balanced than others but my awareness is there, so when I become stressed or tired

I can more easily come back.

In life after cancer, I am happier. In life after cancer, I am more forgiving. In life after cancer, I am thousands of times more grateful and more present.

In life after cancer, I look different, with my GI Jane dark hair buzz cut growing in each day and my new piercings (nose and upper ear).

In life after cancer, each day opens and unfolds so imperfectly and I feel the holiness in it all.

Most nights around 9PM,

if I'm not working and Fred doesn't have a meeting, we find each other on the couch and settle in. Fred has his laptop open and catches up on work but we also watch TV together and he gives me a foot massage and we catch up with each other.

After a summer of watching a lot of shit (I mean like the Japanese game show thing and hours of Larry King on Michael Jackson) we were very psyched for "The Office" coming back last night and it delivered. We had started watching "Parks and Recreation" last spring, almost gave up on it after two episodes, decided to stay with it and now are very into that, too. So yeah, in the wild wacky trendsetting bi-coastal cosmopolitan lives that we lead, I have to humbly admit that Thursday night tv is something we look do forward to.

Fred always goes up to bed after those shows and I stay up and watch "Grey's Anatomy" that we've tivoed. I was kind of sleepy last night and though about going up to bed, too but then felt excited to see "Grey's" on our list and turned it on without thinking.

There was Izzy, almost dead from her (advanced) cancer, scarf covering her bald head. I was okay with all of that, with her almost dying but coming back. I was fine with her baldness. I remember even writing in my blog last spring a line like "Izzy's story is not my story" because there I was, in the midst of cancer treatment and what resonated was just the experience of being a young woman and your life stopping dead--pun okay--in its tracks.

And how what I saw last night made me feel like in fact Izzy's story felt a little too close to my story in that

I wanted to punch Christina, with her glib attitude, sucking her cancer popsicle while Izzy waited for treatment, I wanted to stand up for Izzy and tell Christina to get the hell out of there if she can't deal and to shove her sarcastic remarks up her ass. You don't need her, Iz. (I found out quickly who the people were that I could count on 100% who were there whatever my emotion was and who didn't project their fears onto me or put up defenses like smart-ass remarks and the "friends" who weren't there quickly became not a part of my cancer experience). (or my life anymore).

and then Korev...come on. That just shredded my heart, I mean, his avoiding Izzy, him withholding sex, him not embracing her vulnerability (admitedly complicated with her experiencing the loss of former lover George). I wanted to really punch him, to smack him hard.

I know real women who have lived that; my friend Ariel divorced less than a year after her breast cancer diagnosis. The cancer experience made clear to her what was missing in her marriage; her husband was not one of the people who was 100% there for her, no matter what.

A lot of people have felt and expressed that I have been strong and courageous through this process. Maybe I have been, I feel like I did what I had to do more or less. But man, I knew, there was never any doubt, that Fred had my back the whole time, the entire time.

I haven't once felt ugly or self-consious or strange or unsexual or most of all, unloved. Not for a minute.

And Izzy did not deserve that from Korev and I hope he can turn it around because I like him and I get that he's scared shitless. But these moments call us to rise up. These are the real moments. And even if your partner gets cancer and you are scared shitless, you have to be there for them 100%.

And that devastated me seeing that not happen for Izzy or maybe I just hadn't had the time yet to fully process what I've had and how grateful I am for Fred

and our funny little dates at 9PM on the couch

when there is no where in the world I would rather be, than sitting with him on the couch

watching bad tv.

Wednesday was my last day of treatment;

I thought maybe finishing would feel like nothing at all or like a letdown, but it was ecstatic. At Fox Chase in the radiation department waiting room there's a bell on the wall by the elevator and when you finish your treatment you ring it and everyone stops what they're doing and claps for you and while I was in the dressing room where I had for 32 mornings taken off my top and put on a green gown and then come out of treatment and taken the green gown off and put my top back on again I thought

I'm not going to do it, I'm just going to walk out quietly and be done but then the bell was there on the wall and the receptionist caught my eyes and I grabbed and rang it three loud times and everyone there, people I didn't know checking in for their appointments and two interns running down the steps into the lobby, dripping their coffees, and the spouses sitting on the couches reading the same magazines every morning

they all stopped and clapped

for me.
***
and I caught my reflection in the parking garage window leaving Fox Chase and I paused making eye contact with myself and I thought

I am really done with this now

and there was something different in my eyes, a kind of focus, a kind of looking at things clearly, looking at things straight

that comes from having faced my death and come out to life again, loving it.
***
From there I went home, took the kids to school and took myself to Starbucks for a coffee and scone. I hadn't had much time to pause between George starting kindergarden and my really busy time at work starting up and finishing up treatment. I've been eating really extra healthily but decided to get and eat a scone, the cinnamon chip kind with icing, which felt really decadent. I sat down in a comfy chair, grabbed someone's New York Times Arts section and started skimming an article about Kanye West and his debacle which I had entirely missed. It felt fun and cheap to read about pop celebrity drama while nibbling my scone

and then it hit me again, pausing to look around at the mothers with their toddlers and the students with their laptops and the business people having meetings, that this morning I actually finished it--

all of my cancer treatment, I made it--

and for a second I wanted to stand up in Starbucks and since there was no bell there just shout,
start shouting or just speaking in a loud, joyful voice

listen everybody this is what happened to me and I survived it and I'm alive

(have you ever had a crazy thought come over you for about three seconds like you think you could jump down from somewhere really high and not get hurt and then less than one second later you know not to do that because of course you would get hurt

the moment was kind of like that.) i finished my scone quickly because i had an appointment to get to.
****
and I don't mean a dr. appt, nooooooooooo! I had been given a gift certificate from the parents of my teen group for an exclusive-ish spa and I saved it to use for my last day and i made an appointment for a body wrap massage.

it was awesome. exfoliation, moisturizing and lots of deep touch. i let myself drift into a sleepless kind of rem zone and when it was over i felt even more done with the cancer than ever. i had new skin.
****
the timing has been perfect finishing two days before Rosh Hashana, the new year. For a long time now, maybe ten or twelve years i've been leading children's services for the High Holy days. I told Rabbi Yael about a week ago that i was a little worried, that i felt kind of unmotivated about the holidays.

i said it feels frankly all kind of superfluous to me, the rituals, the examination, i have spent seven months looking at my life and death, i've done the work already.

and Yael said yes, that's right, and to be in that, to hold that, to know that. to not force anything else to happen.

last night when Rosh Hashana began, Fred and I took the kids to his parents house for dinner, I felt just a simple kind of happiness and sweetness that is hard for me to put into words. i guess i am feeling both the strength in me and also a kind of lightness, of empty pockets, of having done a lot of work of letting go.

the services i lead today were okay, probably not the best i've ever lead.
****
June found Bunny Wednesday afternoon. We were in her room and I started cleaning her closet, one of about a thousand projects in the house that I couldn't get to all spring and summer because of the energy I had to reserve to get myself through chemo and radiation. I pulled out a fabric bag that I had put all of her toy pocketbooks in and there was Bunny.

June was excited, but not as much as I was and Bunny's mostly just hung around her room for the last few days. So there.

I've had a few wisps of hair framing my face that never fell out when the rest of my hair did. They've made me very happy all summer because I could pull them out and down, around a scarf or hat and from the front you'd never know I was really bald.

But my new hair is coming in stronger every day, dark little spikes and the long pieces of auburn hair were getting in the way of my new hair coming in evenly. Yesterday morning, before erev Rosh Hashana, I took George's purple craft scissors and I cut them off.
****
After my spa treatment I went for a long walk in Chestnut Hill and it started to rain. I ducked into a sandwich shop at the top of the hill. It was noon by then and the shop was busy with take-out orders. I stepped to the front of the counter to see what looked good.

As I was debating whether to keep indulging or get back on the wagon (went with the haverti on black bread, you decide), a woman behind the counter looked at me and said

Hang in there. You'll get through it.

I was breathless for a minute; no one in the last four months since I've been wearing scarves has said anything so direct.

I'm doing great I said I finished today.

That's wonderful she said it only gets better it's been a year for me

Yeah yeah I said blinking weeping

and realizing that around us everyone had stopped their busy ordering and were shushed up for a minute

and there in the sandwich shop i rang the bell again

i did it i did it i made it!
****
i sang the songs with the children today, apples and honey for rosh hashana, we sang the shema and marched with the Torah and I opened it up and read from the Torah, from the first words

Bereshit, in the beginning of God forming the heavens and the earth

there was tohu v'vohu, unformed chaos and ruach, wind or was it the spirit of God

floating over the surface of the water

and God said let there be light

and there was light

and God saw the light was good

and the light God called day and the darkness God called night
****
and really, to tell you the God's honest truth here, my ambivalence about this holiday is that I am, honestly, a little shaky, talking about it all right now, talking about the new year. Knowing that a year ago I had no idea what was going to come, knowing that I have no idea what is ahead. That none of us does.

But I still love it, I do, the ritual and the children, the round challahs, the apples, the shofar. There is less innocence and less sleepiness in me now. Marking of time is different.

September 16th is going to be my anniversary day from now on and Rosh Hashana, God willing, will take me back to this complicated feeling of what it means to be done.

My life is changing quickly and dramatically

this week and as if sending a child to kindergarden and finishing cancer treatment wasn't enough change for me, Google changed the way that they operate Blogger accounts during this same week that I changed my email address and so I couldn't log in to my old account to get the instructions that Google sent there.

So there it is.

I had no choice but to start this new blog, Hope is the Thing with Feathers, Part 2

because I really wanted to write tonight, so I stopped cursing after about 15 minutes and just moved on.

I had been thinking about whether I wanted to keep blogging or not when my treatment finishes or if this blog was done and now Goggle has nudged me to make the decision. I'm still blogging, but times have changed baby, a new chapter has begun.
****
Summer ended quickly. I was swimming with the kids last week and it was still in the mid-eighties most of the week and then Monday, Labor Day, the air started to smell like fall and Tuesday morning when I walked George to school, we could feel a cool breeze against our short sleeves.

And I thought I would be teary, walking out our door, past two more houses on Union Avenue and then crossing the street to Myers Elementary School, but I wasn't. George was wearing his new Spiderman backpack and he was bouncing down the street, smiling and beaming. All of the work I had done to prep him for the morning...it worked. Because of George's expressive language delays, it's hard for me to always know how much he understands in any given situation, but when we walked up to the front door of Myers and he took Mrs. Beck, his new teacher's hand, without so much as a whine or a "Mommmy!", and walked in the door with her, I knew that he got that kindergarden was starting today and he felt ready and okay.

The tears came for me a few hours later, the sudden longing for him hard for me to bear. Wondering how he was doing, if he was okay. Imagining how he felt at his new school. Then I let myself really go into the emotion, into the realization of this change in our life, of the milestone we had reached. How I easily I can remember what it felt like to hold him as a baby, how hard it was for me to separate from him then.

I thought about how these years that were his early childhood were so different from anything I could have imagined and about the heartbreak, confusion and fear that came with discovering his delays. And I felt a kind of letting go of those emotions, a kind of crying them out of my body, because the boy I walked to kindergarden did not inspire fear in me at all; he inspired me with a kind of incredible optimism and faith and of course indescribable love.
***
June lost Bunny sometime during the summer and she seemed not to notice. She was busy with camp and swimming and riding her bike with training wheels and she's into more sophisticated things now, mermaids and fairies and the Disney princesses, anyway.

June turned 4 on Sunday and the week before we moved her out of her crib and into her big girl car bed which used to be George's. We had been talking about it for months, about how her crib would go to Uncle Jon's baby and how big kids sleep in big kid beds.

But she doesn't like sleeping in it yet. She comes in our bed at 2 or 3 or 5AM and she nuzzles against me and cries like a little cat until she falls back asleep.

And she doesn't like people making a big deal about George going to kindergarden. And she doesn't like hat she can't go into Myers with George. And she doesn't like me going out in the morning to do an errand (radiation at Fox Chase) without taking her. It's a lot of stuff she doesn't like right now.

Then today in the car when I got her from school (which she likes very much), she started talking about Bunny and how she missed her and how she lost her and how she wanted Bunny back.

And the loss of Bunny, meaning the loss of Bunny for June and the loss of June having Bunny for me (meaning June as a baby) was too much loss on top of just two days ago feeling the visceral change of George from a little kid to an elementary kid and me nearing the end of radiation having so many feelings surfacing about all of the losses I've felt over the last six months

and I just looked at June and showed her my tears and I said, "I'm sorry I let you loss Bunny." And crying I took her hand and tried to hold her

but she pushed against me, surprised and thinking me a little pathetic, I think, and said, "Bunny will just hop back."

I nodded in agreement, pulled myself together as much I could using an old McDonald's napkine full of George's gum to blow my nose and wipe my eyes, and then June and I drove to Modell's sporting goods store to buy June shin guards (Shin Guards, hello, she's 4!) since she's starting on a soccer team (more change for us, and hell change is good) later this week.
****
and I just want to interrupt all this to say I know there are big things going on in the world and Obama inspires me every day more because of how he is trying to make change happen in the face of blithering morons and I watch and fall asleep to Anderson Cooper in Afghanistan every night, I just wanted to take a moment to say I am aware of the greater world, I am, I'm just sort of very full with what is here, right here, on my plate--
****
and besides crying when I've felt it and really needed to cry this week, I've had something else going on that has helped me to stay present and grounded: I've just kind of let myself feel happy and not worry about lots of things that I might have, say a year ago, worried a lot about (like, in just over a week I have to lead six children's services for rosh hashana and really at this point none of them are planned).

because even though i am sort of exhausted and unhinged, i'm kind of incredibly happy, too. George has had a really great start in kindergarden! He is in the right class and that is such a blessing.

and my treatment is almost over! and i know there are lots of feelings about my experience with cancer that i have yet to unpack, but when i think i only have 4 more treatments at fox chase, i am full of anticipation and relief.
****
and last night, speaking of change and loss and new things and a new blog and a new year coming whether i;m ready or not, i was taking my scarf off and i sort of rubbed the back of my head

and i felt a little bit of hair back there.

it is just fuzz, just like you know, would be on a baby.

like the fuzz George had or June

or that my mom said I had because I was a bald baby until I was a year old.

and it's funny now to think how much I acted liek June acted about not missing Bunny when really today in the cool September air I cried a little because I've missed my hair so much.