A Single Word

I never believed in writing letters to dead rabbis. Didn’t need another man to pray on my behalf. Well, I’ll write him a hundred letters. I’m believing in everything.

I go through the refrigerator, this is two weeks old, that can’t be good anymore after all this time. So much damn time. I made that meal the day she was diagnosed. Years. I count on my fingers to know how many years it was, how long sliced bananas sat on the shelf, and when I last made mushroom stir-fry. The day my father called and said that she has cancer. That was three days ago. How long were the last three days.

So I got in my car. At some point I must have ended up in New York. Missed the exit for the George Washington bridge and just watched the planes take off. Stared up at the sky and looked G-d in the eyes. Don’t you dare.

And all the others, they must have figured out something I haven’t figured out yet. When they tell me to drink water, or pack lunch for the layover, or go to work. The airport in Atlanta doesn’t sell kosher food. After forty-five minutes I step into a Starbucks and spend $5.67 on a packet of almonds. The cashier smiles and hands me a second. “You gave me two?” “Don’t question it.” I’m an orthodox Jew and my mother has cancer and I booked this flight and forgot to pack anything and this is the only kosher item in the entire airport. All I said was, “Thank you.” They must know something I don’t.

So I took my mom’s car. How can a place be so familiar and so shattered at once. It was whole when I left it and I wasn’t gone long. I lost eight pounds since then. We were at home here. She wasn’t sick yet.

I drove a long time.

Plan, pray, cry. I’m not scared of anything but I’m scared of this. Go here, go there, book this flight. Until you’ve made such a mess of your life that all you can do is fall to the floor and whisper, G-d help me. But the leaves still fall outside.

I want to do something stupid. I want to call my mother and talk about shoes. The sexy red platform shoes she’d be proud of. Our new running sneakers. I want her to run. I want my old life back, the one where I call my mother at random to talk about shoes.

I know someone, somewhere, misread the timeline. Took a wrong turn between the faded months of summer. I know somehow, somewhere, there is a different story where she isn’t sick, and that doctor who once saved my life didn’t spend five years missing all the signs.

And so I wake up at four in the morning and wonder if this is what a heart attack feels like, or when I’ll have time to take my dress to the dry cleaners, or if it’s raining back in Texas.

I press my hand against the wall. The moon behind those clouds is real. The red brick beneath my palm is real. My mom’s cancer diagnosis is tricky. It is only sometimes-real. Sometimes-real is harder because sometimes you forget, and you’re on the phone with a friend or changing a flight or looking for a recipe your mother taught you in the first place, and then it hits you twice.

Sometimes it’s just a single word and you fall to pieces. Sometimes you fall many times.

So now I offer up each moment I miscalculated. Every mistake I’ve ever made and every ounce of pain in tribute. This is my exchange, this is my sacrifice. I return home covered in construction dust. Where was I wandering that I’m covered in dust? I text the Rebbetzin at odd hours of the night. Promise me again that everything G-d does is good.

I’m still running around between twelve places at once, eating dinner at the red lights. I’m still believing I can do everything. Because she can do anything. She can do anything.