Today G_d reminded me of my leash. A sharp pain came into my side left where my many former years of Mittelschmerz would torture me. I have no ovaries to hurt me anymore---not after my BRCA1 surgeries. Vital organs are all I dare keep after being told 9 years ago that I was going to die from a tumor that grew to the size of a large dill pickle in 7 months.
So what was it causing the pain? Had peritoneal carcinoma finally found its way to me per my geneticist's prediction? Did G_d finally decided that I'd endured and conquered enough?
This week is the 9-year anniversary of my tumor being benign! I remember that I requested for an emergency surgery done before my birthday. I wanted to know if I was really going to die or live on my birthday. Well, tomorrow is my birthday again. I've had nine birthdays since my surgery, since being told that I was going to die.
Today though I struggled with the thought that maybe it was my time now. My tears tried to leak from my eyes at what I'd miss in my children's lives should my time be up. I realized how selfish it was of me to want to trade places with the young mother of two who died of cancer this week. The thought of her children not knowing her was jarring. My children knew me and were on their own now, but they will need me here and there through their lives. It was for them that I chose life and did the double mastectomies and oophorectomies to keep the inevitable cancer from reaching to me and our hearts.
Though that misunderstood choice to do the BRCA1 surgeries in 2005 cost me my marriage, though it projected me into a life of self-reliant struggle from a life of emotionally abused leisure, that choice brought me to live each day living, "Carpe Diem!" Through that choice, I've met amazing, eccentric people on the fringes of popular society. Eccentric people that form the silent infrastructure of the civilized world. I've been the confidant to those who will only talk to others who have eyes that have seen great tragedy, yet have raised their chin with the last of their strength, dried the tears that leaked from the corner of their eyes, and kept dreaming and forging and creating and loving and hoping.
We hope that the world would be a peaceful, loving place, and we keep trying to find a means to this goal, but the path flits out of arm's reach like a hummingbird. My chasing this elusive hummingbird has brought me to see amazing sunsets, devotion from one who is not devoted to anyone but himself, exploring the world, living a life of adventure, dancing at the HaKotel like King David.
Maybe it was just dancing again. Maybe it was just the pure joy of hearing the Rieger Klaus grand piano play---a piano that I had handmade in Yugoslavia for my mother. It played once again after one move too many made it unplayable. My joy evolved to dancing and maybe I just did one dance move too many. Maybe the sharp pain in my left side was only a dance muscle that was caught by surprise from being forgotten. Maybe I was only given a reminder of my short leash, my gift of overtime in this world. Maybe I was nudged by G_d to remember to laugh, to dance, to bless a beautiful sight, to hug a friend, to count my blessings, to live each day with love and peace.
Carpe diem!
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
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