Dear Young J,

It is the morning of your bar mitzvah. We’ve all spent months getting ready in our own ways — you, by learning to read from the Torah and preparing a short talk discussing the text, but also by being asked to contribute in a larger way to the world. Because today’s Torah reading is so long, others were drafted to help, and now the roster of readers today includes me, J, Savta (my mother), Uncle G, and a friend of ours. You have some kind of power, to make such a thing happen.

In looking for a mitzvah project, you chose to tackle hunger. You serve meals at a soup kitchen once a month. I had the great privilege to work alongside you, the first time you went. Your absolute focus on doing the job right, which includes a smile for every person coming through the line, was all I needed to see to know what kind of adult you will be. You’re one of the good ones.

This weekend is a whirlwind of activity. Family and friends joined us from all around, and the glowing energy produced by all of the love is something incredible to witness. I have been saying for days that it feels like a massive tidal wave of joy is about to hit us. I don’t think that’s just the prednisone talking. I’ve been able to push through all of the planning and long lists of minutiae with a minimum of grumbling, because the cause is such a good and deserving one.

Last night three of your friends from New York joined us at dinner, kids you’ve known for a few years who are a bit older than you. I was stunned to see how tall they’d gotten, one nearly my height now. It occurred to me that these thirteen years were just the blink of an eye. I now understand, but can’t quite understand. We lived this span of time minute by minute, hours waiting for you to nap and then hours waiting for you to wake up, measuring time in baby spoons of mashed peas. Now the units of measure increase.

Young J, it wasn’t a given that I’d be here to see this day. I’ve always soft-pedaled the malignant part of the disease I’ve been marked with for the past six years. Even though I have come so far, and science has come so far, there will always be a question mark at the end of the sentence. I have been off any cancer meds now for at least a month while my eyes heal from the havoc the meds caused.

I never ask you what it is like to be the child of a person with cancer. My disease has worked its way into the fabric of our family, and not only through my endlessly berating you and Young A about protecting yourselves from UV rays. I’ve developed a way to mention as casually as possible whenever I have a scan, and I ask you to wish me luck, and you do. I don’t think anyone involved in that conversational transaction ever considers that one day the outcome might be anything but good. I don’t look forward to that day… even though there is a small part of me that considers the possibility with a perverse kind of excitement — as though I were looking for a new challenge, and nothing but a mortal threat could ever measure up. I scheduled a routine MRI for the Monday after your bar mitzvah and find I am looking forward to it, much as others might anticipate a spa day.

Let’s just proceed as though I get to be your mom forever, or at least for a really long time, OK? Keep making me proud, and I will try to keep doing things that make you proud of me.

Love,

Mama