Unblocked, and Grateful

Here’s another entry in my Grief and Gratitude series.

Today I’m planning to submit a short story to a literary journal for possible publication, the one I mentioned in my previous post. I’m very excited about this, partly because finishing a story always moves me, but also because this story is palpable proof that I’ve become unblocked – I can indeed go on writing even after publishing my memoir.

I’ve been writing stories, in fits and starts, since I was six. My first was called “Susan the Clown,” and told the story of a clown whose big, awkward feet saved the day by outrunning the bad guys when her circus was robbed. Since then I’ve had long dry periods, but have come back to writing time and again as a way to process my experience and express my creativity.

While I was writing my original blog, and when I started to transform it into And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, I was afraid I’d never again be able to write about anything unconnected with my daughter’s death. Then a friend told me about a three-day workshop on writing dialogue that was to be given in my area. Thinking it would help me with the book, I signed up.

Well, it did help with the memoir but, equally important, it showed me that I could still make stuff up – and stuff that had nothing to do with illness or death, at that. Since then I’ve participated in several workshops run by the same program, a writing group, and a regular writing course. These allayed my fear that I'd never write again once the book was out.

Then a new fear replaced my original one: Perhaps I could do writing exercises or even start stories, but I’d never be able to finish an entire story. Worse, all I seemed able to write was fictionalized memoir – stories so closely based on my own experience that I felt they didn’t “count” as fiction. True, one if my stories was accepted for publication in Israel Short Stories, an anthology of short fiction written by English-language writers living in Israel, but I’d written it about twenty years ago and only slightly revised it for submission last year. I was afraid the well of my creativity had dried up.

But for the past several weeks I’ve taken a short memoir that I started in the writing group and transformed it into a story with a completely different protagonist and message, as well as a main plot that I invented. And today I’m submitting it.

In my post Writing and Resilience, I related how writing about Timora’s illness and death has helped me process my traumatic experience, and how writing helped Timora deal with hers. I think that moving forward – beyond my trauma – with my writing is integrally bound up with moving forward in my life; that is, with my resilience.

And I’m truly, truly grateful for that.

Virtual Tour: Reiki and Resilience

Wow, I see it's been two full weeks since I last posted. I've been writing a short story to submit for publication; hopefully it will be accepted and I'll be able to let you know when it actually appears.

In the meantime, the final stop on my virtual book tour for my memoir was Moonlight, Lace, and Mayhem, in which I wrote a guest post on Timora's experience with the Japanese healing technique Reiki. Here's the post:

At the age of twelve, my daughter Timora was diagnosed with leukemia. I’d like to share with you how Reiki, a traditional Japanese healing technique, helped her for a good part of her time in this world, until she left it at the age of eighteen. The story is, I believe, a wonderful example of how body and spirit are intertwined, and how attending to our spiritual side can help us even as we face physical hardship.

Reiki, which means “mysterious atmosphere; spiritual power,” channels healing energy from the spiritual world through a practitioner’s hands into the body of a person who is physically or emotionally suffering. When Edna, the Reiki Master to whom we turned, laid hands on Timora, her pain would decrease, the color would return to her face and lips, and she would relax as she could under no other circumstances. She told me it was if a gentle light was radiating from Edna’s hands and spreading throughout her body. Edna taught her to lay hands on herself between sessions, which relieved not only her pain, but also the depression that would grip her from time to time, and helped her sleep on nights when everything seemed just too much to bear.

No less important than the treatments themselves were the five Reiki Principles that Edna taught Timora to recite every day:

Just for today, I’ll let go of anger.

Just for today, I’ll let go of worry.

Just for today, I’ll be grateful for what I have.

Just for today, I’ll work with integrity.

Just for today, I’ll be kind to others and to myself.

Timora, raised in our observant Jewish family, had always had a strong religious sensibility, but Reiki gave her the opportunity to express her spiritual leanings directly and practically. After three treatments, she asked to study Reiki in order to practice it herself.

I’ve written a memoir entitled And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, which describes my journey with Timora over the six-plus years of her illness, and without her after she died. In it, I describe how she delighted in her ability to relieve other people’s suffering, even when she herself was undergoing the most extreme of treatments:

Timora was a natural healer, a vessel for a life-affirming energy that would pass through her to others when she laid hands on them…. Once, while she was hospitalized for her second bone marrow transplant, Tehila, [a hospital] volunteer… came to visit her feeling nervous and upset about something that was happening in her life at that time. Timora got out of her bed and made Tehila lie down. She then stood by the bedside and gave her a Reiki treatment. Tehila fell asleep almost instantly and woke up a short time later feeling much better, saying she hadn’t had such a refreshing and relaxing rest in a very long time. Timora later told me the healing energy that had passed through her body into Tehila had refreshed and eased her as well – physically as well as spiritually.

Timora’s Reiki journey didn’t end, it seems, even with her death. Edna has told me that sometimes, when she is treating a client, she feels Timora right there alongside her, strengthening the energy that is pouring through her and into the person they’re both helping.

Edna told Timora the day we met her, “Reiki won’t cure you, but it can heal you.” After my daughter’s experience, there is no doubt in my mind that whatever our burdens, if we open ourselves to what the spiritual world has to offer us, it will help us heal – by easing and enriching our path through this unpredictable, and often cruel, material world.

Virtual Tour: Another Very Positive Review for Twice the Marrow

As part of my virtual book tour, Jody Nicholl reviewed my memoir on the blog Susan Heim on Parenting. Susan Heim is editor of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series, and author of other parenting books. Here is the review:

I can’t even imagine losing a child, and I pray that I never have to deal with that. My husband lost his sister when he was 10. She got sick with a brain tumor when she was 2 and passed away when she was 12. It was 10 hard years of being in and out of the hospital for them, and I am sure it took a toll on the whole family. She was loved so much and, still to this day, 27 years later, tears are shed at the mention of her name.

Reading And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones made me thankful for my healthy little girl. Susan Petersen Avitzour writes this heartfelt memoir of how she lost her daughter, Timora, to cancer. She talks about the journey she went on with her daughter, which started at the young age of 11, the struggles they had to endure, and the way they had to sculpt their lives to meet the needs of not only Timora, but the other children in the family. All this makes this mom a hero in my eyes. It must have been so hard for her to stay strong and keep positive in the eyes of others. The writing is beautiful, and even though some people try and stay away from a non-cheery read, I really suggest you give it a shot. There is just something about this book that made it hard to put down … something about this mother that made me want to try harder and do better. It’s one of those books you will want to read and recommend to others.

Virtual Tour: How I Learned to Live in the Present

This is a post I wrote for Stephen Tremp's blog, Breakthrough Blogs, as part of the virtual tour for my memoir:

We usually think of a personal breakthrough as a realization, or a new idea, that all at once changes the way we see things. I’d like to tell you about a more gradual kind of breakthrough – a personal process that slowly but dramatically changed the way I experience my life.

Like so many others in the modern world, I spent most of my adult life preparing for the future. But the future I anticipated never really came, because by the time my plans actually worked out I was so busy planning the next stage of my life that I barely had time or energy to appreciate the fruits of my labors.

Then, just after my daughter Timora turned twelve, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Suddenly, there was no way we could predict what would happen the next day, let alone the coming weeks, months, or even years, and so planning became nearly impossible. Daily tasks like cooking and shopping gave way to scheduled and unscheduled visits to the doctor. Weekly schedules became subject to the possibility of sudden hospitalizations. And longer term? Well, with almost no notice I could lose my daughter. How could I possibly prepare for that?

I coped by developing a new skill – I learned to live in the present. I cultivated what I now recognize as mindfulness – attentiveness to whatever was happening in the present moment. I didn’t stop all planning, of course, but I directed most of my thoughts to the here and now. Most of the time I left the future to God, in whose hands it rested anyway.

This new (for me) way of being turned out to be a true blessing. Paradoxically, as I let go of the idea that I actually had the power to determine the course of my future, I also let go of a great deal of anxiety – and found myself better able to experience my life more fully as it unfolded. Also, realizing the extent to which nothing in this world is truly permanent made me stop taking the many good things in my world for granted, and appreciate them more deeply.

Especially people. Although I’d always been happiest spending time with those I love, I began to cherish more than ever my moments with them. I also found myself able to give them more of myself than I had before I understood just how fragile our lives really are.

Having learned to live in the present stood me in good stead when the worst finally happened, and Timora died after a six-year struggle. Losing her brought into the sharpest possible focus just how important my surviving loved ones are to me.

I’ve written a memoir called And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, which recalls – among other things – my personal, philosophical, and spiritual journey over almost sixteen years, beginning when Timora’s first symptoms appeared. One of the themes I explore there is the one I’m discussing here:

“When I can say, ‘I’ve done whatever I can for now,’ and at the same time manage to acknowledge the limits of my own power and give my fears and anxieties up to God, I come closer to becoming both whole within myself, and wholly with the other people in my life.”

Our family survived the tsunami of Timora’s illness and death not only intact, but closer than ever. And while I will always carry with me the grief of a bereaved mother, I know that my newfound mindfulness significantly contributed to my resilience – and, ultimately, to that of the rest of my family.

Virtual Tour: Another Glowing Review for Twice the Marrow

As part of my virtual tour, Joyce Anthony reviewed my memoir in her blog Books and Authors. Here's the review:

This is my seventh or eighth attempt at what has to be the most difficult review I have ever written. And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones has a fairly straightforward synopsis. Susan Petersen Avizour had a good job, a loving husband and seven children that meant the world to her. Their lives were ones many yearn for--until the day her middle daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.This book follows Susan and her family through the several years leading up to her daughter's death--and into the aftermath. Through weekly updates at her church, a blog written five years later, based on these updates and poems written by Timora, we get to see how Timora's life, illness and death impacted not only her family, but those around her.

What is complicated about reviewing this book is finding words to describe pure emotion. The author holds nothing back in the telling of her story. You feel her pain, the anguish of feeling that all hope is lost. You feel her great pride in a daughter that tries to make the most of every minute she has on Earth.

Words do not flow from the pages of this book. And Twice the Marrow of her Bones is an exercise in capturing and sharing pure, untainted emotion. The subtitle is "A Mother's Memoir" and that doesn't come close to describing this book. The closest description I can come up with is that this book IS a mother's love.

Women everywhere (and men too) will feel themselves in this book. Even if you have not physically lost a child, every parent fears that chance. As your child moves from babyhood to school and from school to adulthood, you feel a sense of loss for the being they once were. Take that feeling and multiply it a hundredfold and you can come close to what a parent feels when physically losing a child.

This is not an easy book to read. You will find the need to step back and get your emotions in check before continuing. You will have not only the wish, but an undeniable need, to hug your own child. You may even find yourself having to force yourself to let them go. In the end, you will feel as though you have been given one of the greatest gifts in existence, a mother's pure, unconditional love.

I am afraid there arent't enough colors on the Rainbow Scale to rate And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones.

Virtual Tour: Keeping Your Balance When the Earth Shakes

I wrote the following guest post for the blog Leadership Garden Coach, as part of the virtual tour for my memoir. It's called "Keeping Your Balance When the Earth Shakes":

Sometimes it takes a tsunami – serious illness, bereavement and grief, or another disaster – to bring us face to face with our own imperfection. And sometimes recognizing our limitations and reaching out to others for help can ultimately empower us.

We’re all familiar with the myth of Superwoman – the belief that women nowadays should be able to do it all, balancing the demands of workplace and family without batting a well-groomed eyelash. In the early nineties, many people called me “Superwoman,” and I admit that I too tended to think of myself that way. I was working full-time-plus as a lawyer, and my husband Daniel was working almost full-time as an engineer. Together, we were parenting seven children. We had a fairly stable balance worked out; whichever of us was free would do whatever needed doing at home, with some help from the older children. Life seemed manageable.

Then an earthquake struck when our fourth daughter, Timora, was diagnosed with leukemia right after her twelfth birthday. Suddenly, one of us needed to be with her in the hospital, physically and emotionally, all day every day. Someone had to take care of the other children, physically and emotionally. And both of us had our work to keep up.

I’ve written a memoir, entitled And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, about the six-plus of Timora’s illness, and about my emotional, philosophical, and spiritual journey after my world collapsed when she died in 2001. In it, I describe (among many other subjects and themes) how we managed to keep our lives together while Timora was in treatment. It certainly helped that both our workplaces demonstrated great flexibility regarding our work hours. Our older daughters were amazing, staying with Timora in the hospital when they could, often sleeping at her bedside. Our friends and community pitched in as well; we didn’t have to cook at all for the first year, and there were always volunteers whenever we needed errands done.

But no one but Daniel and I could do the most important things for Timora, or for our other children. These overwhelming responsibilities exposed each of our own particular strengths and weaknesses, and I found myself unable, for the first time, to handle certain aspects of my job as a parent. As I write in Twice the Marrow:

“As willing as I was to run around the hospital, the city, or even the country if required to meet Timora’s needs, and to sit by her bedside for long, boring days, there were some parts of the new routine that I wasn’t at all good at. I identified so strongly with her pain or her low mood that I was often unable to keep my perspective. Sometimes, when she felt she couldn’t take it anymore, she’d refuse to take her medications, to allow the nurses to take blood, or otherwise to cooperate in her treatment. At those times, my sympathy for her paralyzed me. Daniel, in contrast, was able to separate himself enough from his empathy to do what had to be done.”

(Daniel discovered some of his limitations, too, as I found it easier than he did to deal with the other children and their increased emotional neediness.)

Almost unbelievably, our family has proved resilient; Daniel and I made it through the inferno of Timora’s illness and death with our marriage strengthened and our relationships with our surviving children closer than ever. What’s more, in the past few years I’ve studied for and embarked on a new career as a psychotherapist, which I find much more satisfying than law.

I’m quite sure that for me, at least, much of this resilience has to do with having learned that I really can’t do everything, and that I can and should count on those around me to do what I can’t do as well. No one is superhuman, after all.

Twice the Marrow and Pastoral Care

Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz, co-Director of Kashouvot, and organization dedicated to Pastoral Care, has written some very kind words about my memoir:

In And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, Susan (Sara) Petersen Avitzour offers us the gift of her soul.

For even the best intentioned physical, spiritual or mental health provider, there is always a barrier of privacy, silence and distance between the experience of the people and families they try to help/ serve. Sara gives us a peek into the experience of one family's loss of a precious daughter and simultaneously shares with us Timora's talents, wisdom and zest for life.

She chronicles in minute detail the experiences of seeking medical care, grappling with illness and navigating the medical system.

In parallel she uncovers her spiritual journey through journaling, poetry, theological reflections and ambivalent return to daily life.

No topic is too private and all are related: food, holidays, parenting, support groups, community, travel, music, career, apathy and depression.

Her labor of love is useful to many different audiences:

-Families of children grappling with serious illness can open their eyes and process their own unique experiences with more lenses and on a variety of levels, without self judgment but with the benefit of time and experience.

-Psychologists and social workers can see the benefit of relating to siblings and the whole family dynamic.

-Pastoral caregivers will find deep insights into prayers, synagogue experiences and Torah text that can help universalize or open up the experience of their patients.

-Rabbis and synagogue staff will become sensitized to the volatile and intense effect holiday times have on memory, pain and alienation of grieving families.

-People of faith may grow from hearing the story of a faith retained yet burnished with more doubt and nuance.

For your mind, your heart and your spirit, get this book and open the first page. You will not put it down, and you will be transformed.

Virtual Tour: Healing and Spirituality

This is a guest post that I wrote for the blog All Things That Matter, as part of my virtual tour:

My daughter, Timora, was diagnosed with leukemia just after her twelfth birthday, and left this world shortly after her eighteenth. Those years took her on a remarkable spiritual journey, which I’d like to share with you today.

Timora’s spirituality combined a relationship with the God she’d been brought up to believe in with a more universal connection to the divine cosmic energy that sustains all life. The memoir I’ve written, And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, tells how she came to me one day with a thoughtful look:

“‘You know, Eema,’ she said, ‘I used to be really angry with God. I couldn’t understand why He seemed to be ignoring my prayers.’

I put down the book I’d been reading, and moved a little closer.

‘Last year, on [the Jewish holiday of] Shavuot, I got so mad that I started screaming at Him. I said that He was stingy and mean, that He wasn’t helping me even though He could.’

I remembered that time well. She’d been weak and depressed, hurting all over. Sores burned her mouth every time she tried to eat, and made every bite taste revolting. She was sleeping even worse than usual, and was haunted by bizarre, obsessive dreams.

I put my hand on hers. What could I say?

‘... You know what happened then?’

I shook my head, still mute.

‘I lay down, and suddenly I started to feel a wave of new strength filling me, flowing into my blood. I told God I’d make a deal with Him. He’d go easier on me, and I’d stop being so angry at Him. That night I was able to get out of bed and say to myself, I won’t sink into this cesspool. I can be strong, I do have someone to give me the strength to live like a person. And I will, and that’s that.’”

Timora later discovered Reiki, a Japanese healing art that teaches its practitioners to become vessels through which spiritual energy flows into people who are suffering. It helped her so much that she eventually became a practitioner herself, laying hands both on herself and on other people, whose discomfort she delighted in alleviating.

Timora departed this world much as she had dwelled in it, in deep connection with the spiritual forces that animate it. As I relate in my memoir, her Reiki teacher visited her in the hospital a few days before she died.

“As Edna touched Timora and the energy flowed between them, Edna felt, through her fingertips and deep inside herself, that part of Timora’s soul was already on the way to the next world. Another part of her spirit was lingering behind – hesitating to leave us because she was worried about us, not wanting to cause us pain – but at the same time longing to be released.

As the energy between them intensified, Edna experienced herself as being together with Timora, in a corridor suffused with light unlike any she’d ever seen or sensed. The corridor led toward an even stronger, more beautiful light, which could not then – and cannot now – be depicted in words, but seemed to be the source, expression and richness of everything that is Good.

When Edna removed her hands and said her last farewell to Timora’s earthly form, she was left with a feeling she can only describe as a kind of completeness, a fullness. This feeling, she says, has not entirely left her to this day. Timora gave her an incomparable gift: Having experienced those few minutes of light together with Timora’s spirit, Edna now knows in the deepest sense possible that she has nothing to fear from the other side.

After her release (Edna tells me) Timora’s spirit did not stay away for long, and soon returned to become a kind of spiritual guide and teacher. Every so often, she comes to Edna during Reiki sessions, and Edna sometimes asks her for help and guidance. When she comes, she adds her own spiritual energy to the currents of Reiki moving through Edna’s hands, making them that much more powerful as agents of healing.”

I believe that God provides us with a well of strength that we can draw upon to go on, even to help others, despite life’s – and death’s – trials and tragedies. We may draw from this well through prayer, or receive it in the form of the energy that Reiki teaches us to harness or, doubtless, in other ways I don’t know of. This strength, this continually replenished energy, is none other than God’s healing presence in our hearts.