The Adventures of Cancer Bitch

MAY 23. THE BLESSING

87 said something like it feeling like I was family. He’d been in two of my classes and I’d supervised his internship. His family had sent me flowers , so going to the funeral seemed to be the thing to do, to continue this circle of participating in important events in each other’s lives. For many years I did not understand why my parents’ friends— people I didn’t know—had sent me presents on my bat mitzvah. I figured it out when I read The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, by Lewis Hyde. He talks about how gifts define community. Then I was able to see that the bat mitzvah gift was more than one gift, it was a gesture in a (then-)35-year chain of gestures and connections. I still have a letter that one of my father’s friends wrote me on my bat mitzvah . It was about the friendship of the families. That man recently died and my mother went to the funeral and then to the shiva. Here, I have the letter, in my Nonfiction files, under the man’s last name. He wrote: YourfatherandIwenttoschooltogetherandhaveremainedclosefriendsoverthe years. Unfortunately we (you and I) have not gotten to know each other as well as I would have liked. It is not unusual in this busy fast moving world of ours for good friends to see little of one another in comparison to the time spent together as children and young adults. As each takes on additional responsibilities, less time is available for “get togethers.” You willdiscoverthiswhenyougetolder.Thenyouwillrealizethatagreatmanyofyourfriends remain close to you even though you do not see them as often as you would like. He wrote to me as an equal. He thanked me for including his family in the bat mitzvah and after-party. I had nothing to do with his invitation. My parents invited their friends and our relatives, and I invited my friends. The thing is, despite all the proclaimed warmth of his letter, his family didn’t invite my family to many events. MAY 23. THE BLESSING My accountant asked if cancer changed me. I suppose, slightly. I know more about cancer. I feel more comfortable with people who have it or have had it. I take cabs more often. I don’t feel deeper or more grateful or spiritual. She asked if I believed in God more. She was assuming that I believed in God some. No, I told her. Although I 88 have returned, mostly because I have more free time, to Torah Study. We’re all irreverent and don’t believe that the Torah is the divine word. We meet in a science conference room in the nearby Catholic university. Today Stan, a biology professor, told this story: The other day he’d been in his office when a man stopped at the open door and asked if he was a kohain, a member of the priestly class. Stan’s last name is Cohn, a variant of Cohen and his name was on the door. (In Judaism, we assume that people named Cohen and the like are descendants of the temple priests.) Stan told him yes, he was a kohain. The other man was very religious, with tzitzit (fringes) hanging under his shirt. He was a buyer-back of textbooks; that’s why he was roaming the university hallways at this time of year. The man asked if Stan would give him the priestly blessing. Stan is not ritually observant, though he belongs to a progressive synagogue. He never wears a yarmulke (skull cap) but that day—that day only—he had one in his pocket because of something having to do with his wife, his car, and his glove compartment—one of those explanations that takes too long to delve into. He had the aplomb to whip the yarmulke out of his pocket nonchalantly, and put it on his head. He’d never been asked to bless anyone before, but he happened to know the priestly blessing. He said he knew it from going to services, and had recited the first line of it to bless his daughter when he dropped her off at college. So the religious man was blessed, he thanked the prof, and that was it. Technically, my husband Linc is a kohain, though he is a true atheist who says of organized religion, Nisht fur mir (Not for me.) A couple of years ago he came with...