Little moments of happiness.

What is the biggest fear in our lives? What motivates us to actually get up and do something? What motivates us? Are we afraid that we will not be truly happy? That we will spend our lives in vain and will not fulfill the full potential that we know we have in us? What happens to us when we really believe these fears, making them another reality and not just another unfounded concern? And how to prevent this process from happening?

Over a relatively short life, I have had many roles and positions. I was a dedicated officer in the IDF, in the corps that is purely all about education, for more than five years. I was a Shlicha (emissary) of the Jewish Agency in Washington DC area. An international relations student at the Hebrew University and also an assistant to the Director of the Jewish Agency. Every position unfolded within it great responsibility, self-fulfillment and especially - personal development and giving for a cause I saw fit. In every point in time, in the past ten years, since I graduated high school, I did what I wanted. I chose and I followed a path that seemed most appropriate. I have no regrets about anything, have no thoughts of what would happen if, as I enjoyed this path. The only thing I wonder to myself about, looking back, is weather I used and enjoyed enough my experiences as they happened, or did I just cherished it later on. "Do we really know how to take those moments that life gives us, and enjoy them when they happen? How many times do we find ourselves longing for the past thinking things were so good back then, actually forgetting what we have suffered at that point, when it actually happened. How many times we do not understand why we are not happy and do not good about ourselves in the ‘here and now’, because on the surface, looking at the facts, we have the recipe for happiness in hand. If so, why? Why do we fail to realize and enjoy those great moments in life and make it part of our way of life, at the same moment as it happens?

I think too often we look at the past with nostalgia and at the present with dismissive and fear. This reflects in the small things - we keep waiting for things in our life to get better, we think about how to improve our lives, check out what we need for our lives to be better. We tell ourselves that we need a just little better income and a bit more tranquility about our children or a good marriage or good friends, or a good job. “If we only have this and that”, we say to ourselves, “only then we will become truly happy”. This sentence is a sweet illusion. We totally ignore the present when we constantly depend our happiness in what we need yet to achieve, and if that happens, then everything will be fine. The real problem is, that this way, we will never truly be happy. Because even if you suddenly will have good relationships, and you will gain tranquility about your children – you will always think of something else that you are missing. What we need. What is the next big thing we want to achieve. Because human nature, if you ask me, prevents those thoughts about what is missing, as allowing it to aspire and think forward, about the future. That thinking and aspiring, they give us a sense of the future, of expectation, of hope. Because we have learned that without this hope for a better future, we will have to make do. And then we think, if what we have now is the best that we can have - what kind of life is this? Is that all that life has to offer us? How can it be the best and most of life? And from this point, we start to dig, and think, and be confused. And we examine about ourselves - what more has to happen will be happy, because current reality does not give us that happiness we are looking for. Because we lack ... This creates a trap, a vicious cycle, and we find ourselves drowning in the ‘honey- trap’ of life, instead of trying to come out and just lick the honey and savor the sweet.

I read once, regarding facts we do not know about the little things in life, that if you are ever stuck in a swamp, the way out of it is not by fighting it and raving around, but to lift up slowly one leg and steadily you will get out of it.

When we are constantly dealing with what is missing and what could be better, and what we need to do to make us better, we actually continue to struggle in the swamp instead allowing he good things that we already have to flow in our blood and overwhelm us. We, with our own hands, bring ourselves to a state of ongoing suffering and refuse to recognize and see the good when he is already here looking at us and tries to get inside us. All we have left to do is just to open the door and let him be. Let us be. This ’here and now’ that is stronger than anything else. In the end of the day, we forget that our future is actually the present that is over, and in order to allow ourselves this happiness in the future, we need to know to embrace the present with both hands, before it becomes the past.

I know, it is important to strive and get better all the time and to move forward. It is important to work and engage around targets and the things we believe in. This aspiration is part of the human fabric of what makes us better and more successful. But this does not contradict, as soon as we know to distinguish these two points: one of ambition and personal development and the other of suffering and self-flagellation, then we can focus on those real things that keep us from being happy. We could distinguish between the main issues and secondary in importance. As long as we mix things from these two groups, we invest energy on the wrong things, and so, we will drown in the swamp of quicksand, thinking that if the struggle against it, we can get out. We will continue to be part of a honey-trap, like living our lives in a cage of gold. The real question is, in the end, is do we have the will and the strength to get out of this situation, and to move ourselves to a state of prosperity, joy, and happiness. If we want it and decide that this is the way. Our way. And whether we are willing to go through the personal process to get there, with very challenging experiences that will lead us even if we don’t want to, to gain insights about life.

If so, the main question is, will we know to enjoy and be happy, without going through a terrible sorrowful way that will make us understand all this. What shall we do with it. Because in the end of the day, we all want is simply to be happy.

** Dedicated with endless love to my big brother, may you continue to enjoy and identify those little moments of happiness in your life.

“The miracles and wonders” (Al HaNisin VeAl HaNiflaot)

On the eve of the fifth candle of Hanukkah, I sit and try to think and identify what was the greatest miracle of this year for me. Is it the fact that I waded through the chemotherapy while bringing to a halt the spread of cancer in my body? Does the fact that I'm still here, alive, is my big miracle? Or maybe knowing I am surrounded by friends and family that spread so much love and support over me that helps and strengthens me every day? Perhaps my greatest miracle of all is the insights I find out about what life means to me, and what is the right way for me to live them. Can the miracle be knowing that if I survived the cancer treatments so far, and even to get stronger out of them, there’s nothing and no challenge I could not overcome. And could my big miracle lie a bit in every one of the things I just mentioned above, but its main source is due any time. Units of time we measure things. My miracle begins and ends in three words - past, present, and future.

I know. Time is a very abstract and comprehensive term. Past, present, and future are in fact subunits within the term that is called time. The obvious question is how these three words can mean a miracle for me. How come they play such an important role in my life. Someone told me once that the word  ניסיון(challenge) contains in it the word  נס(miracle), for that we will always remember that even when we think that life or reality presents us with impossible challenges, a miracle can always happen. In the spirit of Chanukah – ‘a great miracle’ if you will. To live in the present we need a lot of challenges in life, that if we will overcome them, and prevail, we will create for ourselves our own personal miracle. In each point in time in the present, we are facing these or other challenges. That is the reality. The question is what we do when we encounter them. Do we learn from our past, and implement what we learned for the future, or give up and take a more passive approach. Do we understand that we may now have the option to make the ניסיון (challenge) into a  נס(miracle)? And do we even want to put the effort required to reach a state when miracle can even happen in our lives?

 Cancer brings a different meaning to how these three words and the way they are perceived- past, present, and future. The past is an unchanging unit of time, you know it happened, and will not return. You find yourself clinging to the past in lust and looking at those periods of time that shell not return, the time before the cancer took a hold in your body. Then’ in the past, the things that were in the head and heart were things that to seem to you minor and non-important. But then, when they occurred to you, they had very high significance in your life. You look and see how things were in your past. Then you move to the present. How things are for you today. And even if you're really trying to avoid it, too often you find yourself comparing what between the past and your current reality. "Once I could work 15 hours a day. Today? Today after three hours on my feet I'm tired." Such sentences fill your thoughts some times, and you start to understand that yet you are facing another challenge - the attempt to let go of the past and live the present.

The step of freeing yourself from your past and connecting to your present is a very significant step in the process, if you ask me. Because only after we passed this challenge successfully, we can get to what I think is the greatest miracle. The ability to see and think about the future.

The future is uncertain for us all. No one knows what the next day will bring. And yet, we are making plans, dreaming about the future and want to get out and do things that fulfill and comply with the potential that we know we have or think embodies us. A few months after the onset of cancer in my body, I still could not think in terms of the future. Everything was either under the past, or under present. It was one day when I was in China, during alternative treatment my father took me to, that I suddenly found myself saying: "In Rosh Hashanah I will do so and so....". I saw how my father was filled with pride and joy at that moment, as he explained to me that this is the first time he hears me talk about the future on a practical level, the belief and knowledge that it will come. That the future will come.

  My Chanukah miracle is the success on the personal experience I have experienced in the last year. Experience of being able to connect and see the future of my life. Although, with, and alongside cancer. My miracle embodied in the fact that I see the future, and know it will come. Looking forward and dreaming. I dare. I do. I set goals. I am not constantly afraid of the unknown. I know more, I feel more significant. I plan ahead and enjoy the process and the way getting there 

.

I learn from the past, not live in the past.

I live the present, and not live in fear of it.

I think about the future, and not afraid of what the future held.

I wish you all a Happy Chanukah, and may all of you find in his life his own personal miracle, and will produce the most and the best out of the oil jug.

Beginning God created the heaven and the earth ..

בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ. וְהָאָרֶץ, הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ, וְחֹשֶׁךְ, עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם"

 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.”

The world was created. There was chaos. After the chaos, God began to work. He created the heavens and the lights and finally created man, and then rested. He worked six days and rested on the seventh. . "ויברך אלוהים את יום השבת לקודשו, כי בו שבת מכל מלאכתו אשר ברא אלוהים לעשות"  (And God blessed the Shabbat and made it sacred, as that it the day when He rested from all his work of creation) – That’s part of our bless that we give at the  Kiddush on Friday night (memories from my parents’ home..)

I grew up in a home of a Bible teacher. My mother was more than 25 years in various positions in the education system, from Bible teacher to national instructor of Bible in the Ministry of Education. As a child, I remember how every trip with Mom and Dad included explanations and stories from the Bible. Jewish Culture, the Jewish heritage and the Jewish world were an integral part of my life. Shortly after my father retired from the IDF (Israel Defense Force) after more than 20 years of service, he decided to start a second career and went into teaching, and of course, following my mother – and became a Bible teacher. Thus, I grew up in a home where I could hear often statements like “"עינַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִרְאוּ, אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִשְׁמָעוּ ("Eyes they have but they will not see, ears they have but they will not hear”) (Jeremiah, 5) - to express frustration when we didn’t notice something and even statements like: "אִם מִחוּט וְעַד שְׂרוֹךְ נַעַל וְאִם אֶקַּח מִכָּל אֲשֶׁר לָךְ וְלֹא תֹאמַר אֲנִי הֶעֱשַׁרְתִּי אֶת אַבְרָם" " (“If a thread or a shoelace or take anything that is yours and you shall not say I made Abram rich") (Genesis, 14) - when we want to say we will not get anything from anyone for not to say that he enriched us.

So, I grew up in a secular home, but a home that recognizes, respects and cherish the Jewish world. A home where the weekly Torah portion is a significant social issue discussed at the table on Friday night dinner. A home in which "Traveling with the Bible" is a lifestyle and not a slogan. A home where love of the Bible is an integral part of the social structure, and the stories that are accompanied by a moral and social statements arising from the Bible are commonly used. Rules regarding behavior between people, and between the family members. Never did my parents put emphasis on the religious aspect of it, as we see today - a belief in God. We were educated for the main values the Bible speaks of, love of Israel,  and living up to those values.

How does this relate to the cancer that came into my world?

I found myself suddenly thinking about the process I went through in the past nine months. You can say that on January 23^rd I experienced my own private Birthright. Since I was diagnosed with cancer in my body, I met dozens of people that shared a common fate with me, some of who were in a better situation than me, and some – worse than mine. For all of them the process was similar - finding a lump in the breast, suspecting something is wrong, making a doctor's appointment, waiting in line, a doctor than having a suspicious finding, sends mammography / breast surgeon / breast ultrasound, another week / two weeks to go, a biopsy is taken, waiting for the results. Results come back, again a doctor's appointment, decide on treatment, wait until the treatment starts, it begins. Recovered. In more severe cases, with time, routine surveillance, the cancer comes back. Suspected metastases, discover the metastasis and the location, deciding on further treatment. More severe cases, metastatic status was not static, out of control. Do not respond to medications anymore. You are between life and death.

What I described here in a few lines becomes the reality for thousands of women a year in Israel. 4000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in Israel alone. Most of them are going through big parts of the process I mentioned here, in the order that I mentioned.

And I? I grew up in a home with the stories of the Bible. When God created the world, first of all was chaos. Before there was order. Probably the creation of the cancer in my body decided to imitate the creation of the world. Before all there was chaos. Situation between life and death. Immediate risk to life. Critical condition. The doctors are shocked and saddened. They don’t look you in the eyes. They don’t know what to say. No matter how much I explained that there’s no need to worry, and that everything would be fine. Perhaps it was my innocence at that moment, perhaps with pure intent that that’s what will happen, and I'll go out of the Oncology department, 9th floor of the hospital Ichilov, and standing on my feet. Not in a closet. The 9th floor at Ichilov, I understand now, from a distance of time, is the floor from which you don’t necessarily going out walking on your legs. Innocence of me, if you will, I did not realize it at the time. Maybe refusing to accept it created a different reality. And maybe that’s how I went out of the chaos. I started there, and slowly, step by step, as the creation of the world, a part and then another part of me were created, the situation improved a little more, and then some more. And God said let there be light and there was light. My immune system tries to recover.

I was thinking recently what brought me out of the 9^th floor of Ichilov and back home. How come I'm still here. The reason is not always clear to me, I have to admit. I did and I'm still doing a lot of other things in order to get better, in addition to conventional medicine, and will tell more about it in one of the following posts. I even flew all the way to China for an unconventional treatment (that I will also elaborate about this later) with my father who took me on a wheelchair. I received excellent treatment at Ichilov Hospital that saved his life. And so I thanked and I still thank the dedicated team of doctors. I started in chaos. Slowly slowly, yet surly, comes the light.

Creation took six days and then God rested. Metastatic breast cancer is for life. It’s chronic. Not everyone who has it gets long life and good quality of living. Metastatic breast cancer is stage four. It has no cure. During the month of October, the month of breast cancer awareness is being marked. For me, awareness should always exist, and always should go up, not only along one month of the year. They say that early detection can and does save lives. Dear girls, I wrote before, I'm writing now and will write in the future – be aware. Get yourself checked, feel the changes in your body. None of you wants to start in chaos on one bright day. Or to get, God forbidden, to a state of  "ויהי חושך"“let there be darkness”. Let's all stay in the light.

9 months ago I was admitted to Ichilov Hospital in critical condition. I'm still here, continuing to tell the story. My own personal creation of the world. My life. I will continue to tell my story and create hope for everyone who thinks that “let there be darkness” can not become “Let there be light”. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy and live my life. To live and not just to exist. To feel, live the moment and skip a beat when I see the beauty of the world. “ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר, יום חדש.” And there was evening and there was morning, a new day.

I have not chosen cancer, I did choose life.

8 months have passed since the first time chemotherapy was flowing through my blood and my veins. 8 months. 240 days. 5760 hours. Feels like a lifetime. Sometimes, just sometimes, I want to have a week's break from the cancer. That he will take a break from me. But in chronic disease it’s not possible. There are no ready-made breaks, so I have to create them. Over time, I began to realize that I had to create my own reality where I want to live, and though I did not choose cancer to come into my life, in the manner and intensity that he came, but I can choose how to live the time that I have, with him. How much weight I give him, how much importance he will have in my life.

I read all your comments, dear readers: the emails, Facebook posts, and the comments here. Sometimes I even respond. In the previous post, "Love you, leaving you", someone wrote me that cancer is not a subject of ballads and songs. Maybe it's true. Perhaps his powerful presence in my life leaves no room for romance and such attribution. Another person wrote that some people with other difficult chronic diseases struggle as well. It’s true as well. Chronic illness is not easy, and it’s also challenging. The mental strength that is needed is enormous. But, and there is a big ‘but’, I think sometimes it is in our hands to decide how and how much weight to give these diseases in our life. Everyone makes his own choices, and leaves his life in the shade, with and next to the disease. I present here the way which I choose to operate in the face of cancer, and I'm not going to apologize for that. Cancer is a part of my life, and I intend to adopt it tight into my lap, that’s perhaps the only way he would leave. My body is full of it. But I choose not to let it get into my soul. I choose to deal with the reality of life in a certain way, which is the best way for me.

I did not choose cancer, and I did not want him to come. But, it is already here. So, I chose to learn the lessons that cancer teaches us in his own way. I chose to apply those lessons to my life. I chose to live. I chose life. I chose to be. I chose to seize the moment and enjoy it. I chose to enjoy quality time with my family properly. I chose to enjoy my friends. I chose to enjoy writing the papers that I need so I can finish my degree in university, that I want so much to finish. I chose to fulfill childhood dreams. I chose to write a blog. I chose to look at the here and now, not to plan too much ahead. I chose to be a better aunt for my lovely nephew. Better sister to my brother and my sister. A better daughter to my parents. A better friend, a better granddaughter. I chose that cancer will make be better. Happier. Have more joy. To be more myself.

I did not choose cancer, and I did not want it to spread through all my body. But he is here. So, I chose to do everything in my power not to let it get into my soul. Do not give him a window to my soul. To leave it only in my physical existing dimension. And hold it tight until he gets tired of being in my physical body, and it will come out of my body and go somewhere else. To another world. To the next world. And leave me here in this world, with all the amazing things that the world knows to offer us.

A new year has just began, and every one of us is facing every day new decisions, older decisions. Each of us chooses how he wants to shape his life and what content he wants to pour into them. Even within the uncertainty and chaos, we have a responsibility to choose our future. Even in a situation where there are factors, external, that can change our decision. Our choices. I wish you all that we will know to choose the best for us, at the current time, given the information we have today. I wish all of us a year in which we will of leave behind the self-flagellation and look forward. That we will learn from the past, live in the present, and implement in the future. That we will dream about the future. And live it. Be. A year of learning, doing, looking beyond our world – outside, as there are so many things out there that are worth looking at. I wish all of to have a next year.

I did not choose cancer. But he is already here. And I? I choose life. I choose to live.

There is a quote that a friend of mine sent me in English, which I choose to finish up this blog with:

"It is more important to know what kind of person has the disease than what kind of disease the person has" Sir William Osler, 1905.