Sunset in Tel Aviv
These past few weeks have been emotionally turbulent, to say the least. My health woes have found me bouncing back and forth between four separate doctors to figure out what exactly was going on with my legs/ankles/feet. It has finally started to improve. After finally seeing a rheumotologist this afternoon, it has been declared that my immune system, while fighting off a head cold a few weeks back, started attacking the joints in my legs and ankles. It happens sometimes, and people are fine. I'm healing, and I'm fine. I feel like an eighty-year-old woman, but I'm fine.
However, the emotional scar of four weeks of fear and anxiety has left me exhausted and extremely pensive. From the very beginning of this whole thing, I convinced myself that I had something terribly serious and incurable. Nothing else seemed to make sense in my head. My legs literally were not working - certain days, I could not walk further than eight steps without the joints below my knees starting to hurt and pull and stretch painfully. I would wake up in the morning and my Achilles would be so sore I could barely walk to the bathroom. The pain would occasionally dissipate, or change, or become nonexistant. But then it would come right back, scaring me into fearing the absolute worst.
The necessity of getting around Jerusalem - arguably one of the more hilly, busy, chaotic, and handicap inaccesible cities of the world - frustrated me to no end. I've spent the past eight months without a car, and I've come to depend on my body to get me just about anywhere. Having that taken away from me, and having to deal with the abusive and at times cruel cab drivers of Jerusalem, was a little harder to bear than I expected. I truly came to understand the necessity for accessibilty - for all people, with all different kinds of transport issues.
As the healing process has continued, albeit slowly, I have come to realize certain things about myself. While this whole thing was indeed incredibly scary, I became so overwhelmed by fear that I let that fear run away with my sanity. I lost my head a little bit, I made my family and Adam crazy, my roommate thought I was nuts, and my school probably had no idea what to do with me. And now, here I am four weeks later, feeling totally and utterly exhausted. I've finally started to regain my smile and sense of humor. (Baruch Hashem for that)
It has made me all too aware of how much I need to return to meditation, focus, and calm. It has made me realize how much I need to harness my anxiety, and conquer my fear that every little health woe = impending death. I know the root of this particular anxiety, but that doesn't necessarily make it okay. So, my goal for the next few days/weeks/months/eternity is to start working more dilligently on my emotional response to the unknown and the scary. It's part of the healing process for me, and it's part of coping with what I cannot, and will not, control.
The DAJJ, or rather, the DJJA, at Funkbruary 2005: Daniel, Jordan, J.Fro, and Adam
The (hopeful) end of my major health saga coincided with some tragic news. Many of you remember that my junior year of college, I lived with, hands-down, the most awesome three people in all of Davis. All of Yolo Country, really. The DAJJ, comprised of Daniel, Adam, Jordan, and myself, inhabited The Colleges #122. Daniel and Adam have gone on to great things in Washington D.C., and Jordy joined the Peace Corps in Benin, Africa in July 2007.
My dear Jordy emailed her listserve yesterday to inform all of us one of her closest friends, a fellow Peace Corps worker in Benin, had been senselessly murdered. I immediately called her to reach out and talk, to help her heal, and cope with such a tragic loss. Her friend Kate sounded like a truly amazing human being, a selfless and giving young woman; just like Jordy.
The news has been sitting in my stomach like a rock, reminding me how far away I am from my loved ones and how strange and sick this world can be sometimes. I keep thinking of Kate's family, shocked and in mourning. I keep thinking of Jordan's family back in Castro Valley, who are undoubtedly worried about their daughter and wishing for her to come home.
I keep thinking about the responsibility we have as people, as close and as extended community, to rally around those who experience unimaginable loss. We have an obligation, be it religious or spiritual or just plain human nature, to lift those people up and support them with all we have. It's part of comforting those who face tremendous loss; it's part of being a member of the human race. We reach out, we send our love, we try to help in any way we can.
As a rabbi-to-be, and as a paranoid android, death is on my mind more often than I care to admit. The rites and rituals surrounding Jewish mourning, death, and burial are topics I've explored in classes and discussions. And right now I am researching and writing a paper on Kaddish Yatom, the prayer for mourners that comes at the conclusion of a Jewish service. Thus, with the backdrop of my own illness, I've spent a great deal of time thinking about this tragedy, about grief, about loss, and about moving forward to keep living.
I guess the one thing we can always do, and always remember, is to tell the people we love that we love them. Never go to bed angry. Remember how fortunate we are, even in the midst of something terrible or frightening. Always count our blessings. And take advantage of the opportunities we have to do something good, even great, for ourselves and for others. It may be a recycled message, but it's a good one. And recycling is great.
So with that, I leave you. Take care of yourselves, look out for each other, and be well.
Love,
Jaclyn
No comments:
Post a Comment