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.
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