Skip to main content

The Unspeakable Thought

I have these memories – from when I was growing up – of my mother having a lot of stomach problems.  Terrible indigestion, whatever.  The point is, she was pretty horrifyingly graphic and I just did NOT want to listen.  Or talk about it.  Or sympathize.  It is hard to sympathize if someone is complaining non-stop.  I’m sure she wasn’t; it just seemed like that.

My mother makes fun of me now, because I really did think, for years, that the people who complained should be taken seriously, taken literally.  I thought they were dying.  My bubby, who kvetched about everything.  My mother and her stomach aches.

(I didn’t know then what I have seen now:  that the complainers could and often did outlive the silent (suckers!) by whole decades, if not more)

It scared me.  My mother’s aches and pains scared me; the constant noisy backdrop of illness scared me.  When I wasn’t scared, I was embarrassed, but mostly, it was fear.

So now I don’t talk about it.  If I have a head thing, a chest thing, a foot thing, I’ll happily tell you all about it.  But not a stomach thing.  Nothing in the middle, really, which is probably why – with constant pain when standing up or moving around – it took several years to get around to diagnosing my umbilical hernia.

Which wasn’t an intestinal or stomach or digestive-type thing at all, to my unbelievable relief.  I mean, it wasn’t getting much WORSE over the years, which I figured meant it wouldn’t kill me, but it was such a relief to be able to tell people it was just a MUSCLE problem.  Just a superficial problem; easily sewn up and fixed – yay!

But.

But.

Now I know, I guess I’ve always known, that stomach things CAN kill you.  Not talking about stomach things can kill you.

I wonder – here’s the horrible part.  Deep breath.

I wonder if that’s why my father didn’t like to complain or talk about anything he was experiencing.  I mean, I know he didn’t complain; I know he tended to assume his ailments were nothing.  He’s the one who hiked a few miles to North York General in the middle of HEART FAILURE because there was no free parking any closer.

But was he always like that?  Or did he turn into that because my mother was the Belly-Pain-Complainer role and his was the Mostly-Silent Consoler role?

And so – because he’s gone, so that’s mostly moot – I wonder next, will I die that way, too?

I wonder if I will someday die from not talking about the things that happen where food goes, the same way nice ladies used to not mention their uterus or breast tumours until it was too late and they were dead or dying.  If my mother’s life of stomach pain will someday kill me.

Meanwhile.

Meanwhile.

There is supper to cook and the sun is streaming in and life is good, so I have no idea why today is the day for these thoughts.  The sun is streaming in and the song “Od Lo Ahavti Dai” is streaming through my mind. 

One of my favourite Naomi Shemer songs, it means “I have not yet loved enough.”  Here’s a reasonable translation:

Oh - I haven't loved enough,
The wind and the sun on my face.
Oh - I haven't said "enough",
And if not now - when?

-אי
,עוד לא אהבתי די
.הרוח והשמש על פני
-אי
,עוד לא אמרתי די
ואם לא אם לא עכשיו
.אימתי

There is so much still to do.  It’s a good song.

Comments

  1. Don't forget that there's a big difference between "digestive system TMI" (my mom likes to give the play-by-play) and tactfully admitting that you seem to be having some digestive/gastrointestinal issues.

    And you've just reminded me it's way past time to call my sister-in-law (the gastroenterologist) and say hi. I do get a kick out of hearing her say (happily) that work today was crappy, as usual.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a