My friends at work had been talking through their masks about their fears of contracting or spreading COVID-19, while we all waited to get vaccinated.  I love my work friends and was wishing there was something I could say to ease their fears. I had gotten a head start thinking about the possibility of dying thanks to a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, stage IIB. I’ve been in remission for almost two years now. Patients with Stage IIB have a five-year relative survival rate of seventy-three percent.   That means that people with Stage IIB are, on average, seventy-three percent as likely as people who don’t have this cancer to live for at least five years after being diagnosed. My odds feel heartbreaking only when I near my four-month check, or in moments of joy.  I am hoping to be here to play with the babies and children I adore, to fly to England and see my cousins, to retire, to dance at my daughter’s wedding, to write, and to keep waking up next to my snoring husband. G-d has already given me so much.

In the early days of COVID-19, one night before bed, I saw “4.9%” pop up on the group message app my work friends and I use when we need to talk shorthand.  The eight of us knew that “4.9%” meant the COVID-19 positivity rate in our county had risen and that we should be extra careful at work.

Students had been temporarily put on remote instruction, but staff was still required to report to school.  “The district is watching to see if our cases begin to spread with secondary infections within the district.  If they do, or if the county can’t follow the state testing protocols – then staff will go remote,” our Union rep explained during a Zoom meeting.

To my work friends, ‘4.9%’ was a high rate with personal repercussions. Laura’s daughter, who has asthma, may have been exposed to COVID-19, so her daughter was self-quarantining at college as she awaited test results.  Alicia’s partner has diabetes, so they were being extra careful and not visiting any family.  Their worry is real – even in those early days, most of us had already known someone who has suffered or died from COVID-19.

I tried to cheer my work friends up with my personal mortality rate perspective while we talked during a prep period – standing six feet apart in our masks. Our superintendent had just emailed us about another staff member who had contracted COVID-19 and was recovering at home. I could see the fear in my friends’ faces.

“Try not to be afraid,” I said. “Look at me – I have a higher likelihood of dying than any of you – and I’m sort of happier than ever.  We all die at some point, but the chances of COVID-19 getting you are relatively minuscule, especially if you keep wearing your masks and washing your hands.”

My friends each stared at me a moment and then looked away.  It was quiet while they stared at the green and white tiled floor.  I could see that I did not comfort them at all.

I’m happier now because my diagnosis reminded me of how much I didn’t know, like when my rabbi taught me to spell G-d with a dash.  He explained the dash was from an interpretation of a Jewish law, but what he wanted me to remember is that no one word could encompass G-d. We acknowledge His incredible mystery and power with a dash.  Not knowing if I will die sooner than I expected woke me back up to His vastness, and I began to relax into His knowing.

It’s like G-d’s angel said to me, “Pack a suitcase, sweetheart.  There’s a trip you’ll be going on, to a place you can’t even imagine – and we may be leaving soon.” I live with that suitcase in my trunk, and spend a bit of every day prepping for the trip. I clean up messy interactions, apologize, profess my love, say the awkward and encouraging thing I want to, because I want to feel ready when G-d gives me the nod that it’s time to go. I think about my future and reminisce about my past, but I don’t want to waste much time not being present with myself in each day.

I wonder if G-d thought, “What might get her to finally love herself, to fully inhabit her own body, to do and say the things she needs to? Hmmmm- I’ll let her know her time on earth is precarious.  I will wake her the hell up.”

The gift of COVID-19 is the gift of any major illness – to see clearly, if even for a moment, that life here on earth in these bodies doesn’t last all that long.  My grandmother’s glimmering evening bags and her translucent rose covered china have endured a half a century longer than her strong and sturdy body.  We are more butterflies than granite.   Our routines, our focus on possessions, our fear of what’s new and changing keeps death an arm’s length away.  We lull ourselves into feeling permanent.

My grandmother used to wake me up by rubbing my back, right between my shoulder blades, softly and steadily until I opened my eyes and looked up at her. I would look up at her, sitting on the edge of my bed, smiling at me with love.  On mornings when I sleep through the alarm, my husband rubs my arm, gently, up and down.

“Hey Rob,” he’ll say softly, “it’s time to wake up.”

I’ll open my eyes and look up into his blue ones – filled with kindness.  That’s the promise of cancer, or COVID-19 – that we can awaken and look up to see what’s most important right in front of us.  We can be our real selves, and love the hell out of each other.  Just for now, all together, we get a glimpse that this all ends, even this moment, this one right now.

Look Up.

Robin Perls-Shultis has been teaching writing to students with special needs for more than thirty years. In 1987, she earned an MS from Bank Street College of Education in New York City. She eventually moved to upstate New York, where she lives with her husband, Dean, and their cat, Lucky. Besides spending time in the woods and writing, Robin loves to visit with her daughter, stepsons, grandson, and great-godchildren. Being in remission from ovarian cancer has deepened Robin’s gratitude for the beauty of her own life, and for the family and friends who make it shine.

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