Yom Kippur Is a Reminder of How to Live

The moment you face the possibility of death is clarifying in a way no other experience can be. In an instant, you know with certainty what and who you truly love, and the dross of life falls away.

Part of the frustration of those lucky enough to survive such an experience is that they—or rather, I—cannot hold on to it forever. I remember the crystalline sense of clarity that followed two diagnoses—first a brain tumor, and years later, blood cancer. I felt, for a moment, that irritants from small frustrations like traffic, to larger ones like finances, mattered so much less than the gift of being able to walk out of treatment and embrace those I loved. I was certain—and the second time even more certain—that I could hold that moment of shocked lucidity forever. Yet each time, slowly, the difficulties and annoyances of life reasserted themselves. I may have faced and overcome death, but the tire was still flat, the co-worker cranky, and the delivery went to the wrong house. I survived to be irascible again.