Beth's Gift

The other day my wife and I talked about Beth, a good friend of ours, who died of lung cancer about two years ago when she was in her early sixties.  Like another of our friends who died of lung cancer, she had never smoked nor lived with a smoker, so her disease was one more instance of the lack of justice in the world.  After graduating from Barnard College, she went to Israel for what she thought would be a year. But in Israel she met her future husband, an Israeli, and in Israel they stayed.  They lived in Jerusalem, where they raised four children.

We knew her and her husband in several contexts.  We were members of the same congregation, her husband and I served in the same army reserve unit, he was my graduate student and he prepared me for my first public reading of the Haftarah.  She and my wife were members of the same “cooking group,” which met monthly for a three-course dinner, at which the recipes for the courses were exchanged.  Once a year, in June, the club invited the husbands to a grand dinner, featuring some of the most successful recipes. 

Beth was a lovely person in both form and character, gentle, equable, and sensible.  After learning of her diagnosis, she told my wife that her terminal disease was a gift.  My wife told me that at the time she didn’t know what Beth meant but now she understands that Beth’s diagnosis made her appreciate every minute of the time that was left to her, made her live intensely in the moment.  Beth made a last visit to her nonegenarian parents in America, she gave d’vrei Torah and read from the Torah at our synagogue, and she continued to work until her condition progressed to a point that made it impossible for her to do so.  During all this time, she appreciated as she had never done before the beauty of being alive.

My wife said that the reason she now understands Beth’s calling her disease a gift is that my cancer has pushed the reality of our mortality front and center.  My wife says that she now treasures our time together, which formerly she took for granted.  I too treasure it, which is why I’m now reluctant to part from her for any length of time.  My diagnosis has dramatically heightened my appreciation for being alive.  Even the most ordinary moments seem vivid to me when I think that some day I’ll no longer be able to experience them.  But until my wife told me, I hadn’t thought that my cancer might also have positive effects for her. 

When I walk outside and pass so many people who look sad or worried or angry, frowning and grim, I want to stop them and tell them to be happy they’re alive. I want to tell them to look about them and see the beauty of creation – yes, even in the middle of Seventh Avenue - and to remember how much better it is to be alive than dead.  But they’d look at me as if I were one more of the city’s innumerable crazies, so of course I never do.  What though is likely to shake them up and make them treasure the time they have left?  But why am I acting so superior?  I was just like them until my diagnosis.   But just as Beth was grateful for  hers, my wife and I are thankful for mine.

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