Two friends, Beth and Bonnie, and I got together last week to begin to study - Psalms! My secret is that I am not well versed in Biblical psalms, even though I seem to be able to write new ones. Our first study session was a little disjointed. Now we have decided on the text we will use - the Soncino translation - and have given ourselves a first assignment before we meet again.

Living with illness and disability is more than a challenge. It is an every day struggle. In the gray hours of my days, I find I stop reaching out. It is tiring and troubling to feel this way, to find myself not only limited but defined by all the tasks that make up my life. I am pressured by what I have to do rather than what I choose to do. My day is divided with the necessities: it is time to take medicine, time for a breathing treatment, time for physical therapy, time for a rest from the work of breathing by using a mechanical ventilator.

We are asked to remember and retell at the Pesach seder. We are told “to tell your child on that day: it is because of what God did for me when I came out of Egypt.” Just as we were all present at Sinai, so all must have been present when our people left Egypt. How was it to stand, in that mass of humanity, before the waters of the Sea of Reeds, to be told to step forward, to believe that again the hand of God would prevail. May we all be privileged to taste not only freedom, but the experience of leaving whatever enslaves us. May God preserve us in our exodus.

I confess that I don’t make many physical preparations for Pesach. Cleaning the entire house is beyond me. Even cleaning the entire kitchen is more than I can realistically manage. We don’t change dishes or blow torch the ovens or even pack away all the non-Pesach food. Usually, I clean out a cabinet for the Pesach foods and move the toaster to the basement. Since we are seder guests - the first night at my husband’s aunt, the second at his parent’s house - I am responsible only for making two kinds of charoset, and assembling the items for the second seder plate.

It happens every April. Just as the tulips start to open in the flower bed beneath my kitchen window, I find myself teetering on an edge. It is spring, it is warmer and sunnier and everything is unfolding, blossoming. It is also for me the time of anniversaries: I was first diagnosed with cancer in April. I recurred the following April. One year, walking from the car to Reid’s aunt’s house for seder, I fell. It was April. I struggle against the memories as my mind tries to take wing with the world around me. I struggle to prepare my self and my soul for the beauty of Pesach.

My best friend in all the world, my dear Zoë, had surgery on Tuesday, her second in six months. As I awoke early Tuesday morning, I knew she was at her hospital, being readied for the procedure. When the telephone rang before noon, there she was, home again, positive about the skill of her surgeon and her ability to recover.

After weeks of a confused silence, I have found my way back to regular morning prayers. The health crisis that shook me at the beginning of the year is past. I have regained strength and enough distance from that episode to once again be able to chant the words with the proper intention. Except for one.

ALMOST SPRING MUSINGS

Do you sense the same urgency I feel? Do you need a project? Do you need to organize the files, clean the closets, clear out the excess that accumulated over the long winter? And do you have trouble beginning? I do. Now is the moment to draw upon God’s strength to begin anew.

It is twenty years ago this month. After the final round of the second type of chemotherapy for my lymphoma, I am sicker than I have ever been. I am in terrible pain from a bout of shingles. My body is emaciated, my mind is foggy with pain killers. The cancer may be in remission, but I am lost.

“Dear Debbie:

I truly hope you read this email today. A very good friend of mine is having a biopsy of her femur bone. She had Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma 11 years ago and now either has a recurrence or new cancer. Either way, it’s not great and I just remembered that you wrote a Psalm for someone having a biopsy.

Take care & write back ASAP!”