That 20/20 Thing.

I guess I should tell you about the miracle-y things that have been happening during this time. There are two major ones, and here they are:

One: My Job

(It’s funny, when I was home sick with strep prior to going to the hospital, I emailed my boss about my home-sick-from-work status with the title of the email “I thought Job was a later chapter” – little did I know!) ;P

So, as some of you have been reading, I’d been unemployed since graduating with my Master’s in May. I’d been actively looking, thinking about moving back home, applying to anything and everything, with no luck for months. Then, I got the job I now have at the synagogue in Berkeley.

When I got this job, I was resentful. I was thrilled to increase my bank balance from $3.98, but I felt ashamed that I had worked so hard and arrived at what I considered to be an entry level position in the front office – somewhere I’d been many times before. You heard me gripe about it, be the opposite of humble about it, and generally kinda be a dick about having finally gotten a job when I so desperately needed one.

So, here’s the “oo ee oo” part. I got sick. I got really sick. I will be in and out of the hospital for the next 5 months or so, mostly in. So, I can’t work, obviously.

My boss’s son had cancer when he was a child, and his son is alive well, and just had a kid of his own. My boss has had empathy for my situation from the beginning, and as this started to go down, he said to me that they would have a temp in until I came back – that they would hold my job for me. …

At the time this was said, I still didn’t really know what all this cancer treatment would look like – how long it would be. So a few weeks later, when I now knew it was going to be 5 months, not one, and my boss came to visit me in the hospital, I hemmed and hawed – would they still keep my job for me, knowing how long it would be ‘til I came back? Should I tell him? Should I not and just hope for the best?

Well, I ended up telling him. And you know what he said? “I know how important job security is at a time like this, and your job will be here for you when you’re ready.” WHAT THE HELL? How are people so nice?

And here’s the miracle part – IF I had gotten a job with any other company, I can’t imagine that they would be a tenth the amount of understanding. I mean, a bottom line, deadlines, emails, someone needs to be ON IT. If I had gotten any other job, I can’t imagine that they’d hold my job for me ‘til I was healthy, let alone come visit me in the hospital as several of my BRAND NEW coworkers have, and the others who are planning to.

I couldn’t have planned this at all – and I was so pissed! So, hindsight is 20/20 and all that, right?

Although, there’s the part of me that’s like, um, hey G-d, you OBVIOUSLY saw this cancer thing coming, having set me up like a champ here, couldn’t we have gone a different route … but, it is what it is.

Two: My Apartment

I used to work for the property management company that manages my apartment building here in Oakland. When I worked for them in SF, they helped me get my apartment in SF, and when I moved to Oakland, they were equally as generous in helping me with my apartment here (which, by the way, is a 5 minute walk from the hospital at which I’m being treated…).

I left that job under not the most admirable circumstances, and earlier this year, I emailed my former boss to say as much and to apologize for not having been the worker I could have been. He emailed me back to say, yes actually, I could have handled that better, but that he “had my back” if I needed a reference or anything.

Later this summer, however, I emailed him when I was in my mania of “do i move back to New Jersey right now??” and I asked if I could give two-weeks’ notice on the apartment if needed, instead of a month. He emailed one word. “No.” And his assistant emailed me a form for the 30-day notice format ;)

So, I had no idea where I stood in his shit books or not when my mom called him early in October and said, basically, my daughter has leukemia and isn’t working, what can we do here?

Cue the “oo ee oo” once more. My former boss said … he himself had leukemia two years before. He asked if I’d applied for disability (if I’d have any income at all), my mom said yes. And he said, Don’t worry about it. Just keep me informed, and we’ll work it out.

…

What? In SF Bay Area? Rent is a “we’ll work it out”?? Miracle. He told my mom that I’d helped him out when he’d needed it, and true, I drove his dad to dialysis three days a week for a period while I worked there (although, I think I got more out of that one – I learned a lot in those conversations with that man).

My friend said recently to me that we get what we put into the world, and all the goodness that’s coming back to me is simply that. I’m just getting back what I’ve put into it.

It’s a little weird to think like that though, because my immediate thoughts are, it’s not like I am nice on purpose, it’s not like I’m keeping score of how great a person I am as I go out into the world. I just am how I am. So it feels weird to feel like, in a way, I’m being rewarded for that “just the way I am”ness.

However, I was contemplating that ridiculousness the other day, and I thought to myself, Molly, I don’t think cancer is a reward. :P

The bottom line of the above two amazing stories is the generosity of the human soul. It doesn’t really have anything to do with me.

I was talking with my current boss the other day about how many people are wanting to help and do things for me, but there’s often not much to do. I mean, I don’t really need much, except for some cards, and visits, and on occasion a ride to the doctor or a grocery run. But only one person at a time needs to do that. So there’s not a lot for people to do, and I feel that desire they have – to want to do something. To want to take some aspect of my own burdens away from me, because there are going to be many things that only I can and will go through by myself in this process.

So, I’m going to try to think on what people can do that’s concrete, that gives an opportunity to help and feel useful. Because this is what I said to my boss – these days, we rarely get the chance to help each other anymore. We’re all so independent, and I can do it on my own, that as a society and a people, that no one seems to need help anymore.

In a way, my being sick gives others the opportunity to help – to allow them to feel that good nachas (Yiddish) from doing something for someone else, just out of the kindness of their heart. Not for gain, or to check that score card I talked about. But just to help, because you can, and because you want to.

The capacity for human kindness shines very much in this portion of my story. Which, really, isn’t Job, because I’ve got a lot more support than he ever did. And I never owned any goats.