Today is the next to the last day of Hannukah! How is this possible? I haven’t made latkes yet, or baked dreidel cookies. Times like these make me think about time; like why is the trip driving home always faster than the trip going to a place. It was the exact same amount of miles, it just seems faster.
Anyway, welcome to the seventh installment of Ada’s Yiddishisms. This one is about time, in a way:
Farshlepteh krenk
A drawn-out illness, neverending…
My niece told me about a TED Radio Hour podcast about adaptation, so yesterday I listened to it while I went through some motions at the gym. This I do on a regular basis so as to avoid a farshlepteh krenk. http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/455904076/adaptation
It was fascinating, and since I now have to put prednisone drops in my eye every four hours, my ears perked up at this story. A boy was born with cancer of his retinas (stay with me now) so that by the age of 13 months he had to have both eyes removed. He was blind and the first thing he did in the NICU after surgery was climb out of his crib and explore his room!
His TED point was that his parents never treated him as if he was special. They let him grow like a normal boy and explore his world. And so he naturally adapted to the darkness in the same way bats get along flying at night, echolocation – “…the sonarlike system used by dolphins, bats, and other animals to detect and locate objects by emitting usually high-pitched sounds that reflect off the object and return to the animal’s ears or other sensory receptors.”
In other words, he naturally adapted as an infant by clicking his tongue.
What does this have to do with a neverending illness you might ask? It made me think that some parents might immediately do everything in their power to shield that blind baby, to try and make his world carefree. They would emit sympathy from others, he would be labeled, classified and codified.
Some parents create a sickly child, where there is none.
Still, this month is the neverending season of joy, right? If you happen to be going through something hard right now, just remember that December can amplify those feelings. And that it is only one month, 31 days. And we are halfway there. And the second half goes faster!
Let’s hope you don’t come down with an illness, even a short one, over the Holidays, but if you do these two Jewish doctors will be working on Christmas day. L’Chaim!
MountainMornings 
I’ll miss these posts -they’ve been so fun to read and think about Yiddish in my family. Great photo. So is your daughter raising her kids Jewish? Or both?
Thanks Lisa! I’m afraid I may have started a Hannukah tradition. Well, I haven’t really asked, but we did have a Bris with the Rabbi and Cantor and Ms C goes to the Reform Temple pre-school, so I think the answer is Yes 🙂 Her husband was Episcopalian, but is a devout scientist. I always did a little xmas for him when I’m in Nashville, but this year his parents will be there, so I’m sure they will put up a little tree etc.