This and that...

09/29/07

Hey all,

I took my friend Matt to the airport at 4 in the morning. When I came back I did some work, but eventually fell asleep again. In my sleep I had a dream with mom, and she was strong and healthy and we were talking, and I could smell her!!!!!!! She smelled like she always did, that great Loreal cream she loved so much. Anyways, Omer, Abba, E-ma and myself were there and we were talking, and I said to mom—I just can’t believe you are here! And she said (and that’s the part I absolutely LOVE): Believe it!

Ha!

Well, I was so happy in the dream, and I was so happy when I woke up… and I told dad about it and shed a few tears because it was so darn real to me… that I just have to believe she was there. Besides, she told me to believe it, so… what, am I going to start a new trend and not listen to my mother? I don’t think so.

Anyways, I had a lot of stuff I’m working on. One was completing the ER examination. School was gracious enough to delay it until I was done with boards. That’s done (after 4 hours), but I don’t know if I passed or not because they don’t post the scores… that makes no sense. I hope I did, because this was kind of a pain in the… Well, I still got Cardiology to get through, and then I don’t owe the school any more leftover work from last month.

I’m also working on my personal statement—it had morphed a lot since I last wrote about it… I don’t like it yet, but it is better. I am still waiting for school to scan in my documents (letters of recommendation, test scores, academic records) and then I’ll send it all on its way. I cannot wait to be done with it. :o) I think I’ll have it all completely done by next weekend.

Next weekend is going to be exciting. My friend Lori called me up about a month ago and told me that she must come and see me and hang out because she missed me so much. Well, I miss her a lot too—she is like the little sister I never had! She is so full of energy and cracks me up. Anyways, she is coming on Thursday, I have to work on Friday, but hopefully my cats would be nice to her… we didn’t figure out what we will actually do, but I am leaning towards driving into Pennsylvania and visiting Lancaster… we can feast our eyes on the bright oranges/reds/yellows on the way, enjoy good food (and naturally our own good company) and just have a fun day. We’ll see if she’s up for it.

Pediatric cardiology is a lot more fun than cardiology! Yeah! I like kids, and it is so much (more) fun to see them as my patients. My stethoscope needs replacing. I can hear with it, but when I use the doctor’s stethoscope I hear SO much better. So… I will get that soon (…whenever financial aid decides to give me the second part of the disbursement).

Last thing—my friend Banana convinced me to join facebook. It’s a silly online friends community. Well, it is really fun, but the best part about it is playing games! My friend Matt (a different Matt than the one I drove to the airport) is the best scrabble player I met in a long time. I am putting up a good fight and just having a grand old time playing. I really am not spending a lot of time on there—whenever I log on the computer I go there and place the tiles, and a few hours later would come back and do it again. As a result the games last for days, but it is just pure fun. I played against Karen as well, but she cancelled the games—I was very disappointed! :o( Banana has not done a move yet, Mary is being a good sport…

Well… wow, I talk about this and that, don’t I. That’s okay people. Well, I am going to take my laundry down—it’s been hanging outside (in the amazing warm autumn sun) for quite a while now.

Have a good weekend!

Reut


KC is resting

It's Halloween time everyone!

Only The Good Die Young

Note—this entry will not be sent to Nany until I know you’ve updated her.


Even though I work in the field where I see a lot of sickness, accidents, deaths I still don’t get why young people die. It makes no sense to me at all.

Tal, my cousin’s husband was killed in a motor vehicle accident yesterday. He is such a sweet and genuinely nice guy and perfect for my cousin. This makes zero sense. Their little baby girl, Bar,—whom I haven’t seen or met yet, will never know her very awesome dad. The loss is so complex and deep. What was the beginning of a wonderful life with an amazing future was just destroyed in a split second, with no reason at all.

Pain is something so sharp and so horrible. I understand pain. I really do.

After mom’s funeral I was very upset at the world, but found a quick outlet at my extended family. We were sitting around my grandparent’s dinner table and I couldn’t stand it that the world just continued to go on. They (extended family) were laughing and acting normal, while my world crumbled into a thousand pieces. No, it doesn’t matter that mom was sick for a long time—I wasn’t willing to have her die, it wasn’t an option, and definitely not something I allowed myself to accept. I was SO angry at them for having a normal life while mine wasn’t. I found it impossible to sit with them and was irritated with the lot of them.

Hindsight is 20/20. I know (and I knew then too) they weren’t happy that mom died. They were just eating dinner and doing things that were normal, because… yes, life does go on. I get it now. I was just too angry then. Also— it wasn’t that I wanted them to have un-normal life… I just wanted my life to be normal. I wanted mom back.

In any case, my aunt Rena was my target of pure anger. She tried to comfort me and I just couldn’t stand it that she could go on and have a normal life while we just lost our normal. The contrast was too much…I couldn’t stand it that they were happy while I couldn’t be happy anymore. I told her that she didn’t understand—(the pain, the anger, the loss). She is an intelligent person and was wise enough to leave the room before I worked myself up to a full explosion. I was nasty, I really was, but couldn’t help it. As she left she said that I would be surprised—meaning that she understood.

Well. The thing is, I am the one who is right, not Rena. People can relate, but they can’t understand. No one can understand the pain of loosing a specific person with a specific relationship to you. My dad who lost my mom can relate to my cousin, but he can’t understand that unique loss because… well, there is only one mom and there is only one Tal. The secretes shared by Paz and Tal are theirs. Loosing him, his kisses, their plans together… only she can fully experience that horrible loss. Others will experience that loss from different angles (his parents lost a son—unique relationship, years of love, hopes for future) Do you see what I mean?

(I am not trying to be philosophical; I am just trying to explain this to myself).

We—Omer, Dad and myself, we all can definitely relate to their pain. We can’t understand the exact loss but can definitely 100% relate to the pain, which is hers and ours and everyone’s. My pain of loosing my mom is just as sharp, but the loss is mine. My relationship with mom is unique and special and cannot be reproduced and so the loss is just as special and unique. Same goes for Dad and Omer’s loss. Same goes for Paz’ loss. Ilana and Effi’s loss. Bar’s loss. Rena and Pini’s loss.

I can’t explain this better, and really it took me a long time to figure this out.

I usually don’t write specific things about my family (especially the—anger at specific individuals), but I know that my grandmother will look at this sometime in the future—I want her to know that she was right (!) life does goes on. We don’t have a choice. I am continuing and so is Omer and Dad. Paz will continue because she doesn’t have a choice. But I also want grandma to know (and I know she knows) that pain is sharp and horrible and the devastation we all feel is just too much that you feel like you are dying yourself. Savta, there isn’t anything that you could have done to make me not angry at you… because I wasn’t really angry at you. I was angry at the situation. I was angry that mom isn’t here. I needed a place to direct my anger at, and you (and Rena) happened to be these individuals. I am thankful you were there to be with us and help us in your way. Without you we would have lost 20lbs instead of just 10… and all of the visitors would have been hungry…. And we would have been sitting in dirt and stench. I am thankful you are here to be with Paz and Bar.

But mostly, I am thankful you are here to remind us that we have to go on. Even if I hated you for it.

And now, as I am crying on the loss of my own mom. I am crying for Paz and Bar, and for the loss of Tal. I am crying for all who had lost. And all who will.

And the thing is… if we are lucky enough to live long enough, we will experience our own losses. We will have our own share of pain. We will be able to relate to other people’s pain. But, if we are lucky enough to live long enough, we will experience love, happiness, hugs, kisses, everything that is wonderful and worth living for.

Tal lived long enough to enjoy the birth of his daughter. To enjoy wonderful time with Paz. But he did not need to die. He has so much more he needed to live for. I can’t fathom this. “Only the Good Die Young” sucks.

The last thing is that happiness and sadness mix together.
Bar was born 9 days or so after mom died—their happiest day came when we were thick in the horror of our loss...

And that’s life.

09-22-07

Yom Kippur.


Tradition has a lot of power. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fast this year, but after so many years of fasting on Yom Kippur it just didn’t feel right not to. I started the fast not knowing if I would complete it, but found myself at the end of it this evening. I find fasting a lot easier than it should be… I just decide I am not hungry and live off adrenalin for a day… easy enough. They should come up with something harder to repent for bad deeds and sins :o)
Quick question to those who are familiar with prayers and stuff—if Yom Kippur falls on a Friday (like it did this year,) is there a special prayer to add to the normal lighting of the the Shabat candles prayer? I wasn’t sure… if you know the answer to this, let me know.

This week has not been too exciting. Cardiology is not for me. Why am I rotating through a peds cardiology rotation next, is a question I have to answer to myself as well. Sheesh. Hopefully I’ll enjoy that one better.

This past Friday, after (attempted two months worth of) studying, I took the boards. To be honest, I don’t know what to think. There was a lot more OMT than I anticipated a lot more psychiatry. Since I had difficulties with studying I don’t think I did as well as I should, and I am just hoping it was good enough so I wouldn’t have to repeat it… uggg!!! I am not even going to think about it until the results are back, because there is nothing I can do to change this now.

After the 8 hours I spent in front of the computer screen, I stepped outside and saw that right next door to the testing center, there was a JoAnn fabric store!!! I decided that the best remedy for ‘examination induced crossed eyes syndrome’ would be to go in and take a look at the fabrics….
And….
I found the cutest fabric ever!!!!!!!!! It’s all ‘boy’ and I LOVE it!
So the quilt I thought I would start on will have to wait, because I fell in love with a new fabric.

Well, I already put it all together and started quilting it last night. This one is a larger quilt and I anticipate that it will take a bit longer to complete. Expect completed quilt pictures in… March? :o)

This morning I drove to the hospital because I was on call. Nothing happened in the first hour and the interns ended up sending me home. Can’t say I was too disappointed… I was a bit lightheaded from not eating and drinking and was happy to come home, rest a bit and then clean my abode. It is lovely now, but this morning it was quite messy.

Random things I wanted to tell you about—
We have beautiful geese around our area— this year they gave birth to a beautiful albino goose! I’ve been following him/her for a while. S/he is just beautiful. Yesterday, I saw the white head while driving into my street, but didn’t have my camera with me… one day I’ll take a picture and post it here.

Second random thing—when I was driving to buy some tomatoes at the local farm I stopped right in front of the JCC where smack in the middle of the road layed a shiny black male dress shoe. I guess someone just had it with the rabbi and ran out as soon as he could, not looking backwards when he lost his shoe… I chuckled about that one for several good minutes.

Third—it is officially fall weather. Blah. Overall the temperatures have dropped significantly, the mornings are crisp, the leaves are turning colours (they have since the end of July… I think it must have been from the excess rain we had here this summer, but now more trees are turning golden and red and dropping their leaves)… My friend Banana posted something on her myface.com account on the lines of: “…I wish we could go back to the beginning of the summer so we could have 3 more months of warm weather…” I completely agree.

I actually want to go back several years and enjoy more time with E.ma.

Which brings me to my last, but not so random point—
This is just a request—if you by chance have pictures of mom, please scan them and send them either to me or to dad—I would love to see more pictures. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to not seeing mom again, and pictures and old videos (the few that we have) are kind of all I’ve got, so please add to the small fortune of pictures that we have and help us make it bigger.

That’s about it. Tomorrow I will work on my applications. I should have been done with it ages ago, but didn’t get it done for various reasons (take your pick). I will be done with it soon. I am also planning to see dad—so I’ll either go to the city, or he’ll come down here. That would be so nice.

That’s all folks—I’m leaving you with a picture of mom, her sister and someone else with Rocky (I don’t think it’s her brother Danny, but I can’t be sure). I took this picture of a picture during the Shiva from a small picture my cousin Irit had in her wallet.

So from L (our L)--> Mom, Unknown (I don’t think it’s Danny), Aunt Isabelle. On the bottom: Rocky the dog.

Reut

09/14/07

Shanah Tova U’metuka?

What a joke. Really.
Still, I wish the rest of you a happy new year.

There’s nothing too exciting here. I am having a lot of trouble studying for my boards—I cannot sit down and concentrate. Never in my life have I encountered such difficulties with concentrating—if I needed to study I just would get it done. Nowadays I feel like the poster child for ADHD. You already know that I postponed the test by two months—I didn’t feel prepared at the beginning of August and thought some extra time and rotations would help me. I don’t know if the extra time helped or not. Sheesh. The test is next week and I’ll be happy to be done with it, and yet I'm to the point that I just don’t care about it, which is never a good thing.

When I was about 13 I participated in ‘Pitzuchim’—which is the Israeli equivalent of Jeopardy. I remember not telling any of my friends about it, and the only people who knew were in my family. To prepare for it I grabbed a stack (and I mean a stack that was taller than me) of books from the library and I studied the books for several weeks. If I could only reproduce this type of concentration and excitement when preparing for my test, I’d be in no trouble at all. To those who are curious, I won 2nd place in the finals. It was a pretty cool experience, and my first time in a television studio.

In the time I spent not studying this week, I found some really cool thing about “Zehu-Zeh”—I finally figured out the words (yes, I could have asked ‘Dr. Google’ and ‘Professor Wikipedia’ about it but obviously my mind needed to solve the mystery on its own.) To those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, just move on to the next section… it won’t make sense if you didn’t grow up in Israel.
So the part I never could make out is this: האוויר הזה, שאף מלוא חזה here, you can see it in the opening bit and see that I’m right—way cool, huh?


What other cool exciting thing? Well, I have a Vega story! I was studying and just got done completing a test when I heard Vega running from side to side on the balcony and then heard a very loud buzzing sound. I took a look outside and saw Ms. Vega with a HUGE cicada in her mouth!!!! EWWWWW! I didn’t want her to bring the bug into the house, so I shut the door before she could enter and she just stood there and pawed the door until I gave in and let her come inside. She dropped the bug (it was about 4 inches long) and I thought it was dead. She then smacked it with her paws and all of the sudden it just ran outside and got away. She ran after it but the cicada really wanted to live so it made an excellent run for it. Vega was very disappointed but completely intrigued for the rest of the day. Way to go Vega!

Dad said that Vega would probably have survived in the wild, but KC would not have. I tend to agree with that :o) Vega is truly a huntress while KC is a big baby.

On Tuesday I went over to another hospital to see a cath being done. I never seen one before and it was very interesting. Despite that exciting day, cardiology is not growing on me. My next rotation is peds-cardiology and I am hoping that it would be a good experience.

On Wednesday—the eve of Rosh Hashana, I had tears in my eyes after hearing a message my cousin Irit left me. It was a very sweet message and it caught me unprepared. I wasn’t planning to do anything for the holiday; I didn’t want to go to services, and knew I’d just be irritated by people if I went to a dinner somewhere. And since I feel like I have absolutely nothing to celebrate, why should I even pretend?

But, at about 5:30 in the afternoon I felt so miserable that I decided I had to see one of my close friends who happened to be in town. Deepa did a two week rotation at a nearby hospital and I didn’t get to see her until that point. So I called her up and invited her over for dinner. She came and we had a good time eating at an Italian restaurant and chatting about this and that.

So there. This is not an exciting entry…
‘Good happy thing’ for today—I bought some wonderful tomatoes at the farm! Yeah! They’ll be gone before Monday, but I was happy to see the season was not quite over yet.

That’s about it.

Reut

I didn't have a picture of Vega with the cicada, but here is KC being a baby.

Just very sad.

09/05/07

Tomorrow will mark four months without mom.

That’s a very long time. And yet, it seems that just yesterday she said to me "טוב רה-רי, אני אדבר איתך מחר" (“Okay Re-ri, I’ll talk to you tomorrow”) But she never did.

I think that sometimes I’m okay, but the truth is, that I am not, and will never be. I have a huge void and nothing could fill it. No dad, not even a boyfriend. Mom was such a big part of my life that it is only natural that she left a huge crater behind. Of course I am living the day to day life, of course I can laugh, of course I can do things, but it is very clear to me that the beautiful amazing spirit that is not here anymore made my life a whole lot more fun. It was just fun to call mom and tell her about stuff. Show her pictures. Laugh together. Listen to her. It was just fun. And I still need that.

I never believed in anything. My set response for the question of God was that I was raised secular but I really had no idea if there is anything greater. Well. I’ve made a conscience decision to strike that silly answer out. If you’ll ask me now, I’ll tell you that of course I don’t know if there is anything greater or if we continue after death. No one really does. But, I CHOOSE to believe our spirits continue to exist in one form or another—I choose it because I need to know I will be with mom one day.

And until that day, I vow to try and enjoy life as much as mom did. At the moment it is very difficult. But I will try my hardest to enjoy something every day.

I’ve been trying to find something good about these past two weeks, and the things I came up with are that
-My dad came to visit me on Sunday and Monday, and that was just so nice.
-I watched over Erica’s and Matt’s cute cat and she went from being terrified of me to loving me
-The weather was perfect today.
-I get some studying done.
-I enjoyed the free egg salad sandwiches at our Noon Conference today.
-I was a “neshama” (LOL! Dad would understand that one)
-I chose fabrics for the next quilt. It will be very cute.
-I decided to buy a TV after this year is over…

So no, I don’t like cardiology very much. I don’t like the hospital at the moment. Heck, to be completely honest—my life isn’t the most thrilling thing at the moment, and it is mostly lonely here. But, this is not any different than my normal ranting. I will get out of this rut. I know I do enjoy at least one thing every day, and there are plenty days I enjoy more than one thing. Life is precious, and I know that. I really do. It’s just that it is hard to be really happy again.

I will be on call tomorrow night and I just wanted to jot this down before tomorrow.


Reut



That's what I think of when I think of Bet-Herut's cemetery. I KNOW mom would have loved them!!!