As told to Sharon Gelbach

Back when I was a little girl, I was puzzled by a blessing commonly uttered at simchahs: “May you celebrate with a lev sameiach, a joyful heart.” Who wouldn’t celebrate their simchah with joy? It took painful personal experience for me to learn that a family simchah doesn’t always mean a joyful heart. And yet, in the final analysis, it occurred to me that you can still choose to be joyful.

My father was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor just as I was entering high school. Having had blessedly no experience with illness until then, our family was suddenly and violently thrust into unfamiliar territory. For our parents, the diagnosis meant medical procedures, hospitals, filling out forms and having them translated into foreign languages, and seeking healing far from our home in Jerusalem; while for us children, it was about dealing with a lot of unanswered questions and running the household while our parents were away from home. Today, baruch Hashem, there are many organizations that provide support to patients and to the extended family, but in those days there was nothing, and we were pretty much left on our own to cope.

At first my parents didn’t want anyone except the family and a few close friends to know. They were fiercely protective of their privacy in the best of times, and now their determination to keep things quiet grew only stronger. Even within the family, not much information was shared. Even though I was a mature teenager just a few months away from the shidduch market, I was completely out of the loop. Due to their discretion, and, I’ll admit, my own reluctance to hear frightening news, I was able for the most part to pretend everything was normal.

All that went out the window, however, after my father underwent surgery, and showed up in public with unsightly stitches on a partially shaved head.

For many months, Tatty submitted uncomplainingly to the grueling chemo and radiation treatments his medical team prescribed. Despite the pain and discomfort that were his constant companions, he tried to maintain a semblance of his wry sense of humor, and Mommy did all she could to maintain an upbeat atmosphere at home. Maybe that’s why I felt it so hard on the day I came home from school and found my parents sitting in the living room, with the most deflated looks I’ve ever seen.

Mommy walked me to the kitchen. “I’m going to be honest with you, Shevy,” she whispered. “After the last round of tests, the doctors told Tatty they have nothing more to do for him.”

It was the first time I’d seen my father look utterly defeated. But just a few days later he rallied, and with the help of some close friends began researching alternative therapies. They discovered a whole army of practitioners who peddle all kinds of weird and wonderful remedies touted to cure cancer. What they all had in common was that they took a lot of money.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 743)