I'm planning yet another ritual for this week

for Wednesday, March 17th, only this ritual will be a private one, just for me. It will be one year since the surgery that removed my cancer. It was March 17, 2009--when the sweet older nurse who works for Dr. Frankel arranging surgery dates told me she was trying for the 17th, we locked eyes and said "luck o' the Irish" and as luck had it, the 17th worked well in Dr. Frankel's schedule. A whole year it's been since that day. This is what I plan to do: I'm going to read my cards, this whole big bag of them that I read and then saved, this big bag of cards that have been sitting on my bureau collecting dust over the last year.
Some of them are from friends close to me, some from acquaintances, some from kids at Mishkan, some from friends of friends. Some are personal notes, some are funny. Some I ripped open and read quickly before dashing off to get the kids at school; some I held and read again and again if their message really lifted me up.

They've been sitting there on my bureau and I keep thinking that I should read them again but I don't make the time. So Wednesday will be my day and then I will put the whole bag in my big box that I keep in the upstairs closet where I save love notes and birthday cards from my best friends. I go to the box every now and again

when I need a lift up. But I haven't been needing much lifting lately; I am treading lightly, a year since my surgery; I am very much filled with joy. I am feeling creative and hopeful and there
are lots of new things that I want to learn--like reiki and finance. I am not the woman
who went into that operating room; I am not her. You may not see that from the outside at first
but if you look closely, I bet that you would. I don't mean that I have curly hair now (a "jewfro") or some more piercings or that I'm a bit chunkier from the tamoxifen causing the estrogen to stop in my body and my metabolism to slow down; no. What I mean is if you look at me now
you will see a woman who knows how loved she is and who feels God moving through her and
carrying her along. Her, me, is a happy woman. I have my feet on the ground, I'm taking it slowly, in fact, this transformation that is happening asI become the person that I am supposed to become. So I will mark St. Paddy's day this year--
Irish eyes smiling--by reading all of those beautiful cards of love from people near and far and maybe I will get out to meet a friend for a Guinness and if I do I will toast Dr. Frankel and Rabbi Yael and my sister who was with me and Fred and all of the nurses who helped and the people there at Abington hospital who wash the floors and launder the linens that people wear and lie down on for surgery and for that dear nurse who scheduled my surgery for St. Patrick's day and I will toast St. Patrick, too, of course and everyone, everyone who held me dear and helped me to arrive here, March 17, 2010, to this very happy place.