fires, mountains and miracles

It’s been way too long since I updated my blog. So much has happened since the last time I wrote here. We went to Israel for Succos and had an absolute fabulous time. We stopped in London for 2 days on the way there and got to spend Shabbos with Alter’s aunt who lives there. She told me stories of Alter as a child, his time spent in the hospital, his suffering, stuff I never heard about. I really learned a whole new chapter in my husband’s life. One of the most amazing things I found about the whole trip was that it actually happened. I’ll explain…when I was sick, I went to check out different hospitals to see where I wanted to have my transplant. Throughout all my various stops, I found that even if I had decided that place wasn’t for me, I still learned something from the few hours I was there. One nurse who spoke to me said that I should create a Future book, which is a book of ideas and things I dreamed of doing after I got new lungs. Because a transplant and the recovery is so tough, patients often get discouraged or down because of the overwhelming experience and if that happened, they would be able to look at the book they created and remember why they did this in the first place and get encouragement to keep on fighting and not give up. Well, I made one of those books and in it, I wrote that I wished to travel and also to give thanks to God at the Kotel. I wasn’t able to travel when I was so sick and on oxygen so it was always a dream of mine. Anyway, to be able to do both of those things this Yom Tov was incredible. I truly felt like I was living every minute to it’s fullest. Whether it was being up close to Big Ben, riding the Underground, shopping in Machane Yehuda or just sitting in the Succah, I soaked it all in. 

It was perfect. I got to really know my in laws, my sister and brothers in law and my nieces and nephews. It was a true gift to be able to experience all that. But right after we came home, I began to feel like something was wrong. I figured it was just jet lag so I ignored it but pretty soon, it was too hard to ignore. I was in the hospital just days after our trip  with an infection in my lungs. I went from being high up on top of the mountain to falling to the bottom. It was so difficult to go from such a high to such a low in such a short time. The next few weeks continued to be a complicated medical maze where this lead to that and that lead to this. I had not even had time to reminisce and recover from Israel because I was thrown into a whole new mess I had to recover from. But this is what my life is about. Because of my lung transplant, my immune system is low and I am extremely susceptible to germs. I know that things can happen to me much more often than the average person. That is why I have to appreciate every day that I’m able to go out and live and make the most of every minute and why every day I got to enjoy in London and Israel was extra special for me, because I know what a rare gift it really is.

Last week, I saw the heartbreaking photos of the fires that were raging in Israel. The devastation, the horror, the nightmares, I was just so upset about it. I then thought about how in about one month, we will be celebrating Chanukah and lighting our very own fires on our Menorahs. We will celebrate the miracle all about flames and all over the world, we were all praying for the fire to stop. Then it occurred to me how some things in life can be so good sometimes but yet so destructive other times, just like fire. We have so many mitzvahs that we need fire for but at the same time, one flame is capable of so much danger. It’s kind of like, the 2 ways to look at everything, which I attributed it to my life. There are many times in my life that I really feel like it is so difficult but then I must remember to “fight fire with fire” and remember how much good there is too. How you can look at the glass as half empty or half full. It’s really all about perspective. When I was home, recovering from my infection, I was crying to Alter about how bad I was feeling but a part of me always feels guilty complaining. I know I will get through it like everything else but sometimes the “fire” is a little bigger than other times. Thank God, everything calmed down with me just as I had hoped. It was a challenging fall down the mountain and a very hard one to climb back up from. As we will soon celebrate Chanukah, I hope we all see only miracles in our lives and be able to put out any personal fires in our lives, and may we all be able to see light overshadowing any darkness that comes our way.