​After more than four years of constant exercises – arm, hand, speech, leg, walking – I still can’t get up, or walk unaided, or balance more than a minute, or swallow thin liquids or talk clearly without my tongue twisting. So, when my older brother was visiting, I told him about it and asked him about the cause. My neurosurgeon had talked to him about that, he answered. Patients with disabilities who exercised sometimes reached a plateau. I didn’t have a chance to talk with him until he left for Israel, so when I was chatting on the phone with my med school friend, Fernanda, I thought I could consult with her husband, David, who is a physician specialized in rehabilitation. I asked him for how long I would have to do my exercises. The view about the amount of years had varied over time, was his answer. But the bottom line was, you had to do them all the time to maintain muscle tone. Then he passed on the phone to Fernanda.
After I signed off, I felt depressed. The future seemed hopeless. I pictured myself ten years from now, grey-haired and wrinkled, doing my exercise routine every day. I talked to Eric about my conversation with David. To my surprise, he was nonchalant about it. Everybody had to do exercises to keep their muscles toned, he said. What? Then I wasn’t special after all?
A couple of days later, I was resting in bed. I was tired after a full day of exercises, writing, reading, and chatting with friends. My mind was shot. I couldn’t read or write. So, I lay in bed, my mind drifting, while I heard the usual sounds of Eric cooking in the kitchen. Then, it dawned on me: it wasn’t “everybody”; it was athletes that needed to train every day. Otherwise, they would lose muscle tone and be out of shape, and their performance would worsen. The result would be the defeat of their team, and likely the loss of their job. That meant that I didn’t have to act as if I were a disabled person – I had to act like an athlete. I had to focus on training every day to keep my muscle tone.  The far-away future didn’t matter: if I expected my disability to disappear, I was a candidate for disappointment. Instead, I had to focus on the present: on doing my exercises every day. That way, I wouldn’t be waking up thinking, Not again! I would be welcoming another day of exercises with enthusiasm.

​This August my mother and brothers came to Beacon to be here on my sixtieth birthday. The latest COVID variants are much less severe, and governments are giving more doses of the vaccine. So, fear has subsided, and borders are open, which has caused flights to grow. That is why my mother and brothers started planning a trip to New York for my sixtieth birthday. Three years had passed since I’d last seen them. Back in 2019, I’d been just discharged from the hospital and was slowly coming back to life. Now I could chat with them and enjoy their visit.
On the day of my birthday, I received many messages and phone calls – more than I could have ever imagined. The injury represented a turning point for me. Before I suffered it, I used to count the number of birthday wishes; afterward, I stopped counting: numbers were inconsequential because I didn’t need a permanent confirmation of my value in their eyes. But no matter what the number was, they made me feel loved. What is more, despite my insistence against their doing anything, my two brothers and my mother made three cakes. So, the small table was full of food – the three cakes and the fruit Eric bought and cut up.
Then, the guests arrived. We were ten in total, a small party, as I wanted it to be, but emanating warmth and a sense of mutual affection. They sang Happy Birthday, and I blew the candles. And they also sang a funny Happy Birthday song to the music of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” In 2019, there were a lot of people in my birthday party. It was outside in our backyard, and a large table covered with a tablecloth was packed with food brought by the guests (I talk about it in another chapter). It was fun, and I enjoyed it. This party, on the other hand, was inside (the day was unbearably hot), and it was much smaller. There was no food except for the cakes and the fruit. But it was fun, and full of love and joy. I will keep the memories stored in my mind so that I can resort to them when I feel frustrated, or despaired, or depressed – just like going on the deck.