19 Days of the Omer. That is 2 Weeks and 5 Days.
Be the Match Walk/Run 2013
We also walked for Sammy (z”l) who died at 8 years old of AML.
He and his family are also walking with us to Sinai.
Hod shebe Tiferet
Gratitude within Beauty
Saturday evening May 11 and Sunday May 12
That is 4,749 days I have counted since my bone marrow transplant on May 12, 2011.
Which was the 8th of Iyar that year.
This year, the 8th of Iyar is May 16th.
I’m going to go ahead and celebrate both days.
The sun glows extra warmly tonight as it sets and one by one, and group by group, so many people come to walk with me that a Biblical author would tell you we count in the thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands.
I don’t know you all by name, but I recognize every single one of you deep in my bones.
13 years ago, on the morning of May 12th, the bone marrow cells making the blood that pumps through my heart were getting on a plane in Germany with a volunteer courier. Bone marrow travels from donor to recipient with a companion. The cells that got on that plane were Valinor’s cells and they were never alone. That’s what I call him, my unknown-to-me bone marrow donor who I wanted to name. My friends suggested Valinor for the undying lands of Lord of the Rings. I learned later that his name is Ralph. I wrote, he wrote back, I wrote back . . . but I didn’t ever hear from him again. I even had a German friend translate an email for me. After that, I let him be. What he’d done was already exactly enough. I went back to calling him Valinor.
Walking with us today are the courier and Valinor, of course. The medical team in Germany. The pilot and any of the crew who feels like coming along. The staff at the hospital who received and processed the cells and made them ready for me. Brought them to me.
On May 12, 2011 I had been in and out of the hospital for 148 days.
I’d had several rounds of in-patient chemo while living in room 825 at Southdale hospital where some of the best humans who ever walked the earth were my nurses. There were other folks who took care of me, too. There was a man whose name we never knew who came very, very early in the morning to collect the biohazard waste bin. Liddy and I sometimes called him The Wizard - he had that look. I was in the care of theologian-turned-oncologist Dr. Paul Thurmes. We aren’t in touch often, but he and his husband sent Liddy and I a lovely card and letter when we got married. As Liddy remembers, it was always so comforting when he would come in and sit down in a chair to talk about my care, never standing over and looking down on me.
Of course, Southdale isn’t a Bone Marrow/Stem Cell Transplant hospital, so by May 12th, 2011 I’d been moved to the University of Minnesota Medical Center and was in the care of their team and BMT Dr. Erica Warlick. Dr. Brunstein took care of me, too. Dr. Vercellotti figured out my GVHD issues - but that came a lot later. It felt like at least a dozen doctors came to see me every morning during rounds.
We are walking with nurses and techs and wizards and doctors. With the volunteers who push the wheelchairs and the people who mop the floors and do the laundry.
February 2013 Celebrating my birthday by bringing fruit and love to some of my nurses.
By May 12th, I’d also had many of the 36 blood transfusions that kept me alive during treatment. If you donate blood regularly, it is very possible your blood has helped a cancer patient survive treatment or die in less pain . . . or die at home. If your blood is A- and you donated in Minnesota between December 16, 2010 and May 12, 2011, your blood might be one of the reasons I’m still alive. One of my friends came all the way from Australia to donate blood at Southdale! I’m kidding. She came so we could travel around the States together. We didn’t. Instead, in between being with me in the hospital she stayed with friends of mine around the country. She did also give blood. Another friend gives platelets regularly to this day - not every time Memorial Blood Center asks her to, which is absolutely okay. Liquid gold.
Blood donors mean everything to the person on the receiving end. I said a prayer for every blood donor as their blood entered my veins and kept me alive for one more day. I don’t often list this outloud to others, but every day when I say misheberach prayers for healing, I include blood and bone marrow donors.
While we walk, we’ve got orange juice and soup and tea for all of the blood donors.
On May 12th I was thinking of all of my kids, too. My kids had been with me through it all. My kids . . . my students . . . all of the teens and new adults in my program. They sent riddles and jokes every day. The ones in nursing or medical school visited. Their families contributed to a fund. We all prayed, and then prayed again, and prayed more.
I can hear the clamor of these kids, all quite grown up now, many carrying babies and walking with children. It’s like a reunion. Several of them are now nurses and doctors and doing medical research or working in public health. One is a BMT nurse. One is a surgeon. One works in palliative care. One in labor and delivery.
Loved ones and friends and near-strangers organized meals, made meals, made an electric havdalah candle, brought challah, sent cards and drawings to decorate the walls of my hospital rooms, shopped, listened, hoped, cried, and watched funny vampire movies with me. They packed and cleaned my apartment. They found homes for many of my things and moved the rest to Liddy’s house. They took care of my dog, Ro’i, for months. One friend was with me for every single medical appointment and all but one of my bone marrow biopsies. The first one. We learned. People came to Liddy’s house to help care for me. People drove me to daily medical appointments during the weeks I was out of the hospital. One friend gave me new language on one trip to the clinic and since then I’ve thought of my immune system as my goats - a whole herd of cells. I take them out for walks, and they take care of me.
See what I mean? Hundreds of thousands.
On May 12th Liddy and I had been dating for 216 days, 68 days longer than I’d been in treatment for Acute Myelogenous Leukemia.
That afternoon a friend came to be with me to give Liddy a break. She read me The Velveteen Rabbit. Liddy returned and another friend came and my rabbi came. He spoke about blood becoming bloods when Valinor’s marrow began to make blood for me, too. His marrow would become mine, the blood it made would be mine, and it would also in some way be the same marrow as the marrow in his bones making his blood. Blood, a noncount noun, plural. My Velveteen Rabbit friend left. My rabbi left. One friend stayed. Liddy stayed. Two nurses came in carrying the bag of Valinor’s marrow, they hung it on a pole and connected it to me by a line. There was no pump. Gravity guided Valinor’s cells into my body, dropped them over my heart, my heart took them in and pumped them everywhere else, and by some wild miracle they found their way to my bones where they settled in and made themselves a new home.
I fell asleep listening to Liddy and my friend talking softly.
Which means tonight, on May 11th, as we count the nineteenth day of the Omer, all of this is yet to come. Liddy thinks she remembers getting Vietnamese food that night before. She thinks she remembers that I could still eat food then, and that I enjoyed it. I don’t remember. I remember knowing that Valinor needed to be well enough to donate, that flights can be delayed and canceled, that things can go wrong. I don’t remember being worried about that, just aware that like so much else in life, a lot of surviving is luck.
Surviving is surviving, though, and here I am. Out here walking my goats.
These words, these sefirot words, have so many meanings.
We’ve seen that now for nineteen days.
Hod can be humility as I wrote on week one day five.
Hod can be splendor.
Like the root of the name Judah, it can also mean gratitude.
Thank you for walking with me.
See you at Sinai.
Epilogue? Addendum?
The National Marrow Donor Program used to be called Be the Match.
Be the Match used to have a walk/run in May right around my transplantaversary.
While I was still in the hospital people ran in it. We raised money. While I was still recovering, we walked. I even led a Shabbat morning service in the park before we walked a couple of years.
One year in September I hosted a donor registry drive. If you are between 18-40 (because research has shown that cells from younger donors lead to better long-term survival for patients) it would be awesome if you’d pause along our journey to Sinai and look into registering.
The 13th anniversary of my bone marrow transplant has arrived and I haven’t had capacity to make a plan to celebrate. I haven’t even really been able to figure out how I want to celebrate. Here I am, though, still walking. Baruch HaShem. Thank God.
How to say the blessing:
Choose the language that resonates with you the most.
Non-gendered Hebrew based on grammar system built by Lior Gross and Eyal Rivlin,
available at www.nonbinaryhebrew.com
Gender Expansive:
הִנְנִי מוּכָנֶה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶה …
Hineni muchaneh um’zumeneh …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
Feminine:
הִנְנִי מוּכָנָה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶת …
Hineni muchanah um’zumenet …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
Masculine:
הִנְנִי מוּכָן וּמְזֻמַן …
Hineni muchan um’zuman …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
All Continue:
… לְקַיֵּם מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב בַּתּוֹרָה וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
מִיּוֹם הַבִיאֳכֶם אֶת עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת תְּמִימוֹת תִּהְיֶנָה. עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
הַשְּׁבִיעִית תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָה לַיי
… lekayyem mitzvat aseh shel sefirat ha-omer, kemo shekatuv batorah: us’fartem lakhem mimacharat hashabbat, miyom havi’akhem et omer hat’nufah, sheva shabbatot temimot tih’yena, ad mimacharat hashabbat hash’vi’it tis’peru khamishim yom, vehikravtem minkha khadasha l’adonai.
… to fulfill the mitzvah of counting the Omer, as it is written in the Torah: And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Shabbat, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the wave-offering, you shall count seven full weeks. Until the day after the seventh Shabbat, you shall count fifty days, until you bring a new gift to the Eternal.
Gender-Expansive Language for God
בְּרוּכֶה אַתֶּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ חֵי הָעוֹלָמִים אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשֶׁנוּ בְּמִצַוְּתֶהּ וְצִוֶּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Brucheh ateh Adonai, Eloheinu khei ha’olamim, asher kidshenu bemitzvoteh v’tzivenu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are You, Eternal, Life of all worlds who has made us holy with Their commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Feminine Language for God
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָ-הּ אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוְּתָהּ וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Bruchah at Yah, ru’akh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotah v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer
Blessed are You, Yah, our God, Spirit of the universe who has made us holy with Her commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Masculine Language for God
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are You, LORD, our God, ruler of the universe who has made us holy with His commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Count the day and week
Today is the _________ day, which is _________ weeks and _________ days of the Omer.
Today:
הַיּוֹם תִּשְׁעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם
שֶׁהֵם שְׁנֵי שָׁבוּעוֹת וַחֲמִשָׁה יָמִים לָעוֹמֶר.
Hayom tishah asar yom
shehem sh’nei shavuot va’chamishah yamim la’omer
Today is nineteen days of the Omer.
That is two weeks and five days of the Omer.
Sefirat HaOmer Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCiPI1tMQ