The First Candle

I awoke thinking that I was at my parents’ house.

I could almost smell Mom’s potato pancakes in the air, hear the comforting sounds of her and my father, whom I call Aba, bustling about downstairs.

But then my eyes finally adjusted to the fluorescent light. The pale green walls, the metal bed rails…I remembered where I was: the UC-Irvine Medical Center cancer ward. The last place on earth I wanted to be, especially the first night of Hanukkah.

I lay in the hospital bed, woozy from antibiotics. The drugs left me in a kind of haze, never quite certain what was real and what was imagined. I remembered Mom bringing me here several days ago, feverish and miser­able.

By now I had come to expect long hospital stays after chemotherapy treatments that left my immune system helpless against infection. But I had prayed—had believed—that this time would be different.

After months of fighting leukemia I wanted to be home for Hanukkah with my family, to light the menorah and hear the story of how when the temple was rededicated in Jerusalem there was only enough oil to light the menorah for one day. But it continued burning until more oil could be made—for eight days!

I looked forward to my father, a rabbi, saying the traditional prayers, those words honoring a God of miracles. I needed to hear my father’s voice, to feel his unshakeable faith.

But that wouldn’t be happening. No way could a menorah be lit in a hospital room. A fire hazard, the hospital staff said.

I sank back into the pillow. God, I prayed, you knew how much I needed this. Couldn’t you have granted me this much?

I didn’t want to think about the alternative. Perhaps God was answer­ing me. Maybe this was his way of telling me that the cancer had finally won.

This isn’t how my life was supposed to turn out, I thought. I was going to be a rabbi, walking in my father’s footsteps, one of God’s servants. I’d just finished my second year of rabbinical school that July when I came down with what I thought was a bad case of the flu.

Then I got the diagnosis: leukemia, an extremely aggressive form. Even with the most powerful chemotherapy available, my chances for survival were slim.

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