2 - A Song for the Time of Treatment

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I think it would be impossible to meet someone who has not been touched in some way by breast cancer. Herself, a mother, sister or aunt, a dear friend, a member of the many communities we belong to. It is all around us. News of diagnosis seems to come in bunches. We hear of one woman, two, four in the same month. Last June, a good friend and her adult daughter walked 60 miles in an AVON Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk that raised $4.7 million in funds for breast health and early detection programs. My husband, who is a physician, sees women with breast cancer nearly everyday, to perform a special diagnostic procedure. Jewish women worry if we are at special risk. Do we have the breast cancer gene?

The second psalm I wrote was for a friend who was fighting a recurrence of breast cancer. A gifted singer and music educator, our daughters had attended preschool together at the local synagogue. In fact, she had schlepped my kid to school everyday during one of my own periods of cancer treatment. Over the years, there have been other words for other friends engaged in similar struggles. Only with vigilance, with early detection, with increased funds for research, will this women’s scourge be eradicated.

Two

A Song for the Time of Treatment
For C.R.S., z"l

And I will praise You with clear sweet tones,
Singing Your gift as I gather my courage,
Hearing the music of my life,
As, once again, I gird myself for battle.

And I will praise You with melodies
Remembered from my girlhood,
Songs that comfort me in night’s darkness,
That relieve pain as I call forth their echoes.

And I will praise You with measures counted
In perfect stillness,
As machines whir and focus their healing beams,
As fluids rush through clear tubing.

And I will praise You, seeking harmony
In the discord of this illness,
Seeking to hear again the sounds of strength
Above the cacophony of this invader.

And I will continually praise You,
All the days of my life.