"April is the cruelest month," the poet wrote; and I have found that so true and so untrue. Every year in my family, April is dominated by Passover and the preparations for it. It is always such a big deal: the cleaning of the house, making everything Kosher-for-Passover, planning and buying the special food, going to the storage-unit and getting the special Passover dishes. Then the cooking begins--several days before the Seder. With two Seders, and many friends and relatives at each, we end up preparing food for as much as two-dozen people, some years. And during the seven or eight days, there is no chumatz to eat, every meal must be cooked at home, no restaurants to make life easier. Much as Christians find December dominated by Christmas, so do we find April dominated by such a stressful confusion of Passover tasks, with little time for other things this month.
Yes, it is chaos, but it is a glorious chaos. And when, just at the right moment, just as the First Seder is to begin, everything suddenly comes together--all that work of the previous few weeks comes down to this moment--and somehow it always goes off perfectly. Everything works, the holiday commences, the family celebrates and retells one of the greatest stories of redemption of all time. The stress has vanished and in its place, a spirit of love and fellowship suddenly fills the house. And it is at that moment that I suddenly re-realize why Passover is my favorite holiday. And that it has been worth all the obsession and toil. And that April becomes the coolest, not the cruelest, month.
But this April, April of the year 2000, has been so different for my family and me. Hard to believe, but Passover became 4th or 5th priority, in the wake of my father's sudden and unexpected illness which sent him to the hospital for two weeks. Instead of Passover preparations, our lives were dominated by long, extended hospital visits. As my family pulled together, we made sure that my father was rarely alone. Spending so much of the days by his side, there was no time (or even much concern) for all the other daily aspects of life, let alone the holiday preparations.
But far worse than simply spending time with him, was the tremendous psychological toll. Dad wasn't just "in the hospital;" he was in such a tremendous pain and the infection which the doctors could not identify, let alone cure, was spreading over his foot and up his leg. When I looked into my father's sick face, I saw real helpless fear in his eyes. The angel-of-death waiting in the corner.
The night after his third day in the hospital, I went home alone and I literally cried. Never had I been more scared in my life; never had I come that close to the thought of my father's quite possibly imminent death. As I lay on my bed, tears rolling down my cheeks, dry throat emitting hoarse, guttural sounds, it was one of the worst moments of my life. And yet ironically there was something strangely redeeming about my reaction. You see, I always knew I loved my father, but it was not until that moment, when faced with the real possibility that I might lose him, that I truly and deeply realized just how much I loved him.
And there in the darkness, from my lowest point, I did something I rarely do. I let out a prayer to God. Perhaps the most serious prayer I have ever prayed, with a combination of despair, fear, and love. And do you know what happened? Amazingly enough God answered it. Because the next morning, my father's infection had not only stopped growing, but had actually shrunk a little.
That was not the end--there was (and still is) a long way to go--but that night he got over the hump. He was out of imminent danger. The week-and-a-half yet to come would still prove to be very difficult. Besides the terrible pain which doesn't seem to recede very much, there were so many indignities to suffer, that go along with life in the hospital. I had to deal with many of the dirty details which are too inappropriate to mention publicly. All the murky and fetid chores of life that we most often find easy to ignore when we are healthy become such a major deal when you are in the hospital.
Somehow my father improved enough that he could be released from the hospital on the first day of Passover. It was a very welcome reprieve for us all; yet the night before, the night of the first Seder, my sister, my uncle, and myself went home to a silent, empty house (my mother would be spending the night at the hospital) which, under normal circumstances, would have been filled with festive cheer that night. It was certainly not like any other erev-Passover we had experienced.
But we went into the fridge and found some parsley and some bitter herbs. There was an egg and a shank-bone we put on our table. We got out some matzah and wine and said a few of the blessings from memory. It was certainly no Seder, but it was enough to remind us of the holiday, of the redemption from bondage, and we could thank God for my father's redemption from the hospital, the next day.
The next day was a glorious chaos. My father came home, immobile though he was, and we had to prepare a special bed for him. A friend came. And we cooked all the traditional Passover foods. My sister even made matzah-ball-soup. Such turmoil! It wasn't until 8:00 that we were able to sit down to a Seder, and there were only six of us, and we skipped some of the parts because of length, but I can tell you it was the happiest Seder I have attended. I was choked with emotion as I read some of the passages from the Hagadah. Maybe it didn't come together perfectly this year, but my father being home, able to join us, and on the way to healing, made it better than perfect.
This is truly what a holiday should be about. And sometimes what seems to be the worst Passover may, ironically, turn into the best one.