Some of the nicest visits I had during my many hospitalizations were from a friend who came and read amusing short stories to me while I ate. Another friend would just sit quietly and do needlework. They required nothing of me; the solace came from their loving presence.

My weekly routine includes three sessions of physical therapy, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Laura puts me through my paces, and we chat about many things: her daughters, my daughter, books, current events, and faith. Outwardly, she is as different from me as can be: tall and strong, and an honest-to-goodness WASP. But we have such similar values and similar attitudes about God and our ability to be partners in the on-going search for wholeness.

As we anticipate our daughter E.G.’s college graduation, I look back and forward. I try to consolidate my memories, the changes and those things that have remained constant. Perhaps we remember beginnings more easily, because they have the brilliance of the new. But there’s also goodness in those things that have history, that last.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to create a new psalm for the Yom HaShoah observance at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, both an honor and a daunting task. I kept reading articles, trying to find words to bear witness, to bring holiness to our acts of memory. Yom HaShoah follows so quickly after Pesach, falling on the 27th of Nisan, April 19th this year. We work to reconcile all the facets of our people’s existence.

What was it like to be a slave in Egypt? The injunction to feel as if we personally were liberated from slavery can be difficult when we have always lived in freedom. As we retell the story at the seder, we try to experience the movement from degradation to active responsibility. Perhaps our charge is to ensure freedom for all.

I confess that I’m not usually accurate about candle-lighting time. Certainly I have a calendar that tells me when I’m supposed to light them, but I like to wait until my husband is home. Usually, I strike the match just before we sit down to dinner. I think we all need a moment to decompress at week’s end, to shift gears, to let the peace of Shabbat embrace us.

I keep forgetting to pull down the shade on the bedroom window that faces east. The rising sun summons me from sleep and, a bit surprised at the early hour, I try to resist pulling a pillow over my head. The sunlight is energizing, a blessing spurring me to action. It is almost spring, time to be grateful for having reached another season.

Uncle Irv is dying. I watch him grow frailer, and see as he makes his accommodations. Reid and I went to visit one recent Shabbat. The living room soon filled with family, each greeting him with a kiss. “I feel like a mezzuzah,” he quipped. I think I am witnessing what the hospice people call “a good death.” Many things must conspire to make it so. I feel privileged to play a small part.

Purim is the time of the contrary, when appearances are deceptive. So much is hidden, so much will be revealed as the story ends. Dealing with illness, it is hard to escape the longing for the real picture, for the reasons and meaning of this experience. For the prognosis and the story’s outcome. Can this time of trouble also contain moments of growth? Do we deceive ourselves, or are we finding hidden truths?

Sometimes, when I look at “the big picture,” my life seems pretty scary. All of us wonder about the end of our lives, but putting a name, a disease, a condition on it, brings it more clearly into focus. So I try to step back from my imagination of dire predictions and instead look at the hidden bounty of the present.