Jewish Musings, Sunday 2/5

[lee058]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Angelika
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to do that but you are also welcome to chime in!

[lee058]

Hi everybody, and good morning, even though there's only about a half hour left of it. I didn't forget about starting our thread. I've been filling out a multitude of forms for my doctor's appointment tomorrow about my shoulder, also doing laundry (lifting very carefully) and helping cook. It's been a busy morning.

My neighbor who went into hospice on Friday died yesterday. I'm feeling sad, but I'm glad that she won't be in pain any more and that her family got to see her before she passed away. This event has been making me think about my dad and my sister. I talked with my mom about this, and I am glad that she is still alive. When she goes, I will miss her a lot; hopefully she will stay alive and in good health for her age for awhile (!!).

Which leads to today's, and very likely this week's, topic(s): Why do people die? Why do we suffer? How come life can be hard? I would be interested in our discussing various aspects of this from our Jewish woman's perspective.

My take right now is that maybe there are some things, like compassion, that we learn better because of our own suffering. Maybe it is necessary? I don't know. Some people turn bitter, others become more gentle and kinder. Everybody is different. There are a lot of things that I don't understand, and the older I get, the more I realize that it is important to talk and also to listen in order to find peace in my heart.

Anyway, I will be back later and I hope that this week will be helpful for all of us to understand some things better. Have a peaceful day, Lee

[happysavta]

Perhaps the question isn't why do we die but rather how do we face death? We all know dying is inevitable and we all know that scientists are very actively pushing the envelope of genetic engineering to lengthen longevity dramatically.

But back to the question of how we accept death. I've been to a lot of hospice visits and a lot of funerals, and I learned a lot from our cancer patients. I learned the most from the patients who took charge and faced it head on. They wrote their own obituary, they decided whether they wanted to be cremated or buried, they decided what hymns would be sung at their service, or they decided to skip funeral services and have a Celebration of Life. They were the people who were not bitter about dying.

They made sure their trusts and finances were in order and they pre-paid their funeral arrangements, bought plots. They left wills and clear instructions. They made sure one child got this particular piece of jewelry while the other sibling got the good china. They were not afraid to enter Hospice months early and make the most of that time.

I truly admire those who took the time to write an "Ethical Will or Legacy Letter". An ethical will, or legacy letter, lets you share what you've learned over a lifetime about values, blessings, love, and forgiveness with your family, friends, and community. It is a way of pointing out the great lessons of life to be passed on to your grandchildren.

Lee, I'm sorry about your neighbor. And I'm sorry to hear that she was in Hospice only one day. Hospice is a wonderful tool for the last 6 months of life. It offers a release from aggressive medical treatment which often prolongs suffering to palliative care (comfort care). People are afraid to acknowledge that the end of life is coming so they don't enter Hospice until too late. But if they are in Hospice services early, they can enjoy that period of time pain free, visiting with attentive loved ones and friends, saying their good-byes, making amends where needed. Most people have Hospice set up in their own homes and don't go to hospitals, which is very nice. We visited one of our dearest cancer patients at his home which was right by the beach and the first thing he said was, "Look at that view from my window! Isn't this a wonderful place to die?"

[happysavta]

I'm leaving for Houston tomorrow. My son-in-law has written a book called "Stretch: Unlock the power of less and achieve more than you ever imagined". He is a business school professor at Rice University and one of his areas of research is the science of resourcefulness. The book is being published by HarperCollins and the formal book launch is being held at Rice University with a panel discussion by some famous notables. It's open to the public and there are 650 rsvps.

[savtele]

Boker Tov All! We have been talking "end of life" issues in my family for the past week. I am finally (!) filling out the parts of the Advanced Directive that I had ignored - and my mom has filled out her POLST form (Physicians Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment).

I know on one level, when my mom goes I will miss her terribly. Then again - she's lived a good and long life! I have been finding myself looking at nature - the green little buds of spring (I'm waiting for them with baited breath!) that fill a garden, blanket a hillside, break the soil, and unfurl green spears out of the ground. Fat catkins on stems. Fresh new color on what had been a grey & cold landscape. - So much like my babies/grandbabies. Fat little fingers and toes - all smooth and pink, with small crescents of finger & toenails. And then they grow.

There is a riotous burst of colors! Tulips and daffodils, camellias, roses, camas lilies, and St. Anne's lace, baby robins, bluejays and eaglets - and my children and grandchildren, as they are growing into who they are, gaining confidence, playing soccer, basketball or hopscotch, dancing & singing! Noisy and busy and flitting about!

Fruit sets on trees and in gardens. We pick zucchini blossoms & nasturtiums to add to salads, and later, the young fruit for dinner. Still later, (ok, maybe only 1 hour later) the zucchini that ate Cleveland is lying under a leaf somewhere -waiting to be ground up for zucchini loaves for the freezer. And harvest of all kinds of fruits and vegetables comes pouring into my house. From our yard, from our neighbors, from the Farmer's Market. Abundant ripeness! And my babies are having babies - and in 2 months there is a 2 y o birthday party every other week around here!

The garden starts to die back. Some of it looks sad & wilted, other parts will remain evergreen - but the cones fall off the trees. Birds head into the trees on cold mornings - you can hear them twittering there. Most of the garden looks like it is fading away.

And I look into a mirror, and though I can see a dim past reflection of all the people who I was in my Spring and Summer - I have to admit, the face looking back at me is Autumn. My hair is grey. There are crinkles in the corners of my eyes, and my neck -whose neck IS that??! My knees creak when I stand up, my back straightens out because I consciously will it to do so. The cold tends to settle into my bones far more than it used to. Winter's coming....

When a blanket of white will silently cover the earth.

This cycle has been repeating itself for as long as there have been seasons on the earth. Our cycles may be a little different - we certainly can still produce far into old age -although our priorities may change. But basically, that's my cycle of life. There is a serenity in knowing nothing ends. The spiral continues. And new, fat bud will appear on trees, and new pink fingers and toes will crawl around on the grass at my house!

Ingo is in Cardio Rehab. He's doing well, although he remembers nothing from about 2 weeks back. We don't know if any of that will "fill in" over time or not. Meanwhile, both he and my SIL will be retiring, at least for now (as long as we don't know how his short term memory will be, leaving him home alone is not an option)

I'm going to tend my fire (get some of that warmth into me.)

Lee - I love this topic!

[peachymom1]

Lee, I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend. May her memory always be for a blessing.

In the past year, my boss lost both her parents. It was expected in both cases, and they'd been living in a wonderful assisted living center and were happy. It was still very hard on my boss, as she was close to her parents, but the amazing thing to me was how much love there was in that family. Every day of her life, my boss has known in her bones that her parents loved her. Not all of us are so lucky, and it's a wonderful thing to see. Why do we die? I don't know why the universe was set up that way, but I do know that when there are endless tomorrows, there's less focus on today. I imagine it must be easy to get complacent and apathetic if it doesn't matter much of you do something now or later, when there's all the time in the world.

Why do we suffer? I don't know the answer, except that all of us suffer at some time in our lives, in different ways. I tend to lean toward Rabbi Harold Kushner's teaching, that it's more important to shift the focus from the "why" to the "now what." My friend is suffering, so I want to help him/her, and indeed, it's my duty as a friend to do what I can. Maybe I can't alleviate her suffering, but I can watch her kids while she makes meals to freeze for her sister who's going through nasty chemotherapy. I can't do anything about another friend's financial situation, but I can invite him over for dinner a little more often, I can help him find extra ways to earn money, and I can listen when he's stressed and needs to vent. Maybe I can't do great or grand things to make a difference, but maybe if we all do small things, we won't need to do big things.

[louise]

As you all know my DXH struggled with the incredible burden of his health for 4 years before he died. I was always amazed about his calm through it all and also his determination to get to the other side of it if he could. When we knew we had to let him go my rabbi talked to me about the different ways death can come and we were very glad to help make his passing as peaceful as we could. My mother is 92 and has outlived her best friends - several rounds of them actually. It seems there is always someone in her community in the hospital, sick and/or dying so we have started talking about that. I think it's good to make a space for these difficult thoughts.

[lee058]

Thanks everybody for your comments today. I'm sure we'll have a lot to discuss this week!

Have a peaceful night, Lee

[hollygail]

I’ve been thinking that DH and I really do need to finalize our wills. To the best of my knowledge, he’s never written one. At least I started, although I have to go find it now… I can’t remember how I filed it…

I’ve been wanting to write an ethical will for about 20 years. I’m not sure where I first heard of them, but once upon a time, a rabbi of mine married (later than many), had twin girls (both out of college now), and shortly after their birth, he wrote an ethical will for them. He had the courage to read it to the congregation in lieu of a sermon one time. I was hooked on the idea. And I’ve taught the concept, both to pre-bnai mitzvah kids and in adult ed classes more times than I can count, but still haven’t been able to sit down and write one of my own. I suspect I’m going to have to enroll in a class in which not only do we learn how to do it, but in which there’s an assignment to do it.

[peachymom1]

Holly, I did write an ethical will some years ago. I think my kids were teenagers. I'll need to get it out of the file and read it over, possibly update it. Hey, you could be your own teacher and assign it to yourself to do one!

We wrote legal wills when our kids were babies, mainly because we wanted to choose a guardian to raise our kids if both of us were to pass at the same time. We updated them a few years ago, since the kids are grown now. I highly recommend that you do it, so things are distributed the way you want them to be.

Frieda, how is your DH doing? Is he over the pneumonia now?

Louise, I did see your post on Friday about your job. Hand pats and some hugs to you. Keep us posted on how things are going. Maybe some dream job will drop right into your lap!