This time of year always hits me hard. 

The seasons are changing, the sun is moving lower in the sky, and the light is not as intense. The colors of the leaves are starting to fade, as they begin to die, even as they turn intensely colorful just before they drop. 

Yet, it is a new year. 

Classes started for students, and for me as a teacher, so there is always the excitement of new beginnings even as they bring challenges. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year when we begin the cycle again during the period of the “High Holy Days,” has just passed. As I enter another year of teaching, I prepared for those holy days for the past month, the month of Elul, that precedes Rosh Hashanah. It was a long span of reflection, of accounting, that I began before the semester started. It has been the second week of classes, and I feel pulled between my active work duties and the spiritual work where I contemplated when I may have hurt others or disappointed myself. So I spent my time, taking account of not just the past year, but of how I spend my life.  

Family and friends matter most to me. The last several years since my husband died has left me thinking about him and our marriage. Having been writing my memoir for a long time, I have long reflected deeply on my life. 

I also throw myself into work mode—research, writing papers to present at conferences, and essays to publish. I often become frantic, anxious that I won’t meet a deadline. Yes, I work obsessively, and so I do not know how, or if, I can retire. Being busy distracts me from other worries—like that America and the world seem to be going in directions I find very unsettling. But teaching and writing are also the ways—my gift-- that I believe can help my students have a clear moral compass to navigate this stormy world and make it better. After all, they are the future. Is that not what my rabbis say we are obliged to do—tikkun olam—repair a broken world? It is a Hebrew phrase, but it is not only a Jewish value. 

There is much work we need to do and it seems endless. I think of the poets I teach. John Donne in his “Satire 3,” disturbed by religious doubt and wars over religion, who wrote that “Truth” stands on a “huge hill, cragged and steep,” and to reach her is the work of a life time. His metaphor suggests we are always struggling, always seeking. Donne is talking about spiritual work that must be done now. Milton’s “Paradise Lost” ends with Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden into the fallen world, told not to despair, but to work. “Add deeds” to your faith, the angel Michael tells Adam, even though Adam just learned the world will only get worse and worse. 

So, here I am in the Autumn of my life still teaching after many decades. Almost everyone I know my age has retired. But I do not feel old. I do not feel done. Sometimes I ask myself, is it vanity that keeps me in the classroom? No, it is commitment to “do the work.” For teaching, at its best, is not simply communicating knowledge, but soul work, helping young people become stronger and prepared to do their best. 

During this Rosh Hashanah, even as I felt pulled by supposedly “worldly” and “spiritual” obligations, I know my two lives intersect, strengthen each other, and give me purpose.    

When my husband died just over three years ago, I thought I was done with caregiving. I was exhausted and drained from those years, even though we had help from aides the last of them. Mourning doesn’t have a fixed period. What’s the right amount? Thirty days? A year or two? More?

It can come in unexpected waves, or ripples in the stream of life, moments when there’s a sudden memory or sense of being alone, even though I have loving friends and family, wonderful students to teach, and a profession I enjoy.  Once the third anniversary of my husband’s death passed, I finally felt I was ready to enjoy my life, making the best I could of every day. I thought (repeatedly), “I don’t want to take care of anyone. I’m done. I just want to take care of myself.” 

But this past January, just as I was beginning my sabbatical semester leave, which I very much needed to do research, reading, thinking, and writing, (I was even planning to attend a conferences and see friends), everything changed. A beloved brother received a serious medical diagnosis. Only fifteen months younger than me, he would now be in need of care and assistance. As the oldest and his only sister, it has fallen to me to arrange health care, legal matters and various consultations, helping him while also worrying what it might take from me. Another brother has already taken on so much to help him for many years and has been a life-saver for both of us. But this situation has really thrown me. I find myself grieving all over again for a beloved person who is aging with serious health issues. And worrying about my own mortality. After all, I’m the oldest.

I’m sad and tired. Why can’t I be released from the physical, mental, and emotional job of caregiving? I want my life. But what if this is my life? 

A woman who had been in the Parkinsons support group with me said she was worried I was letting myself become “a victim.” What a strange remark. Caring for a family member doesn’t make you a victim, even if you wish you didn’t have to do it. When I talked to his oncologist (a wonderful doctor), she said, “well that’s what sisters are for.”  Hmmnn. The independent woman and long-time feminist balked at that too. 

Friends remind me, “practice self-care,” just as they did during the years Tony was ill. I do take care of myself - I cook and eat well, exercise mind and body, drink good wine, get sleep. Still, the phrase always bothers me, sounding narcissistic and vaguely masturbatory. Recently, I was at Bed Bath and Beyond and when I was checking out, what did I see displayed but a book called Love Yourself: A Woman’s Workbook. See what I mean? Could have been the title for a sex manual!

So here I am, helping my beloved brother as he begins going through chemo. The one kind of caregiving I’m particularly good at is food and nutrition, fully believing food is medicine and pleasure. First thing I did was making nutritious, tasty food that would help during chemo. I cooked red lentil soup with ginger and garlic, turmeric and cumin, a stick of cinnamon. I roasted red peppers and tomatoes and pureed them. I stewed green beans Greek-style with tomatoes, olive oil, lemons and oregano. Even if he would rather have chopped liver, pastrami and Danish pastry from my local Jewish bakery! How can I say no to him? Instead I say, strive for balance and please no chopped liver!.

Those are words to heed for me as well. Sometimes I think I care too much, that (as psychotherapists say) I don’t draw clear boundaries, especially with people I love.  A dear friend told me the other day, “Maybe you need to just accept that you are a person who cares and loves.” I know my caring is a gift (in two senses), but sometimes it feels like I have trouble setting parameters. We are supposed to be open, welcoming (in our communities, in our nation, embracing others, the stranger as symbolized by the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus’s poem echoing Isaiah. It is an ideal, an aspiration. Yet there is no community and no personal identity that doesn’t require limits. How do I find the difficult balance between being open to and caring for others, and not losing or damaging myself? 

The challenge is to find the proper balance, and not stop caring even if we sometimes want to pull back, especially if it’s hard. Maybe that’s the challenge of life, for there will be no end to caring, to being called on to care for others, even if there are limitations to what each of us can do.