Day 8 - Nonstop Self-discovery

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

One side benefit of my current situation is that I am forced to be deal with questions that I normal don't bother thinking about, concerning situations I would otherwise not be involved in.  For instance, next week Amiel has a party in preschool/kindergarten (it's mixed ages), celebrating the completion of learning the entire Alef-Bet.  The preschool is public, but pretty much run by our yeshiva-based community, and conforms to its somewhat strict (depends on your perspective, of course, another 100 meters north you enter Bnei Brak and there you won't find any mixed gender kindergartens whatsoever) code of interaction between adults of opposite genders.  Therefore each time parents of only one particular gender are invited to attend and watch their children perform some kind of dance or other show that is the main event of the party.  For obvious reasons, the mothers are usually the ones invited to such things, as is the case with the party next week.  Under circumstances wherein Michal can't attend, Avigail would go in her stead, armed with some kind of photographic apparatus.  This time, Avigail can't go either.  That same afternoon she has dress rehearsal for a play that her drama club is putting on the next night, and she has a fairly major role in it (there are only 11 girls in the production).  

And now the question is: What shall we do with poor Amiel?  He'll be so distraught and dejected if noone comes to see him dance!  It was suggested by my overseas advisor to invite the same great-aunt who took two kids last week to the light show in Jerusalem.  "She'd be more than happy to come," she assured me.  Hold on, let me get this straight -- we're going to ask her to cut out of work early and travel approximately two hours each way, so that Amiel will have someone cheering him on in the crowd?   I told her what Amiel had told me earlier that day, after he found out that Avigail had a serious schedule conflict.  He said that the kindgarten teacher (also named Michal) told them that anyone whose mother can't attend, she'll temporarily adopt them, so they'll have her as their maternal standin.  Amiel then concluded, "So she'll be my mama for the party!"  He didn't seem the least bit upset.  Problem solved.

My analog journals.  The dates on the inside covers, from left to right:
Nov 2, 1995, June 18, 1996, April 24, 1997, April 2, 2000

Those kinds of interactions are interesting, but I think the most significant positive impact for me this trip has had is this blog itself.  At age 14 I started keeping a diary.  Not a record of events, but of thoughts and feelings.  I wrote about everything that I was going through in my most formative years, including the entire process of becoming religious/observant, relationships I had, and the decision and execution of making aliya.  After getting married the diary entries slowly taper off, becoming fewer and farther between.  The last entries were written on our last trip stateside, in 2009.  I'm not entirely sure why I stopped writing, but part of it was the fact that it didn't feel right keeping a private log of a life I now shared completely with another person.  This blog. as a public chronicle rather than a private, secret journal, sits much better with me and my current state of being.  I do believe that I will continue to write, even after the month is over.  But probably not every day...

Hold Your Breath, Cross Your Fingers, and Pray

Today, in a few short hours, my mother-in-law goes under the knife in an attempt to mend a heart condition she's been suffering from for years, hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, or mitral valve disease.  We ask everyone to pray, say a few kopitel of tehillim, think positive thoughts, or whatever you think could help, to support her in getting through the operation and recovering afterwards.  For those who want to mention her name in prayer, it's Anna bat Michlya Freida.

Life-threatening conditions, and the operations, no less life-threatening themselves, that people undergo in order to be saved from them, raise all sorts of questions.  As a bystander, I'm more interested in the questions that pertain to the people who care about the person whose life is at stake, so to speak.  Should I prepare myself for the worst possible outcome?  Or should I think only positive thoughts, and focus on what will need to be done for the recovering patient, assuming the best (or at least not the worst) outcome?  I think most people would agree that not writing up a will after a certain advanced age is irresponsible, if not downright reprehensible (because of the arguments in the family the lack of a will can create), but it doesn't necessarily follow from that that one should be occupied by the eventuality of death, even when it's statistically imminent.  I apologize for the rather morbid post, but you can't always be upbeat about everything.  Death, as they say, is just a part of life...