A visit from my rabbi.

A month ago, not sure if I would ever feel better, I asked Jamie to come see me. At the time I’d had thoughts of dropping out of the trial, going into hospice. Tired of all of it. Feeling sick. Life on the line with unproven drugs. Too. Much.

By the time we synched our calendars a month had passed. A month in which I hired a housekeeper, started getting better nutrition, sleep. I was no longer feeling from a mood of weariness.

I wondered now about my purpose in these last years of my life? Jamie told me of some material he’d been reading about mattering. I found it intriguing. Here’s a quick Gemini summary:

• Significance (or Importance): Feeling seen, essential, and having the small things about you remembered by others.
• Appreciation (or Recognition): Being valued strictly for who you are, rather than exclusively for what you achieve.
• Investment (or Ego Extension): Knowing that others are genuinely invested in your well-being and that you are mutually invested in theirs.
• Dependence (or Reliance): Having people in this world who safely trust and rely on you, without overextending you.
• Attunement: The feeling that you are worthy of being understood and responded to meaningfully by your community. [1, 2, 3]

I like this because it wraps the question of purpose-self extended outward-in a broad context which includes family, community, and the inner experience of being human. And, in particular for me right now, it shows that purpose can be showing others that they matter.

Not, imh, strikingly new or revolutionary, yet a full advance over achievement and accumulation as life’s purpose. Also, it does not denigrate those, rather it sets them in what seems to me their appropriate context.

I’m focused now on mattering, especially the ways I can help you, reader, know that you matter.

On a health note I have walked unaided almost the full length of my driveway and back. Mary is my wingwoman in case I falter.

Mary has been a kind and helpful presence since she got here. Setting herself things to do like eliminating expired food, cleaning the fridge, and all my kitchen cabinets. Most of all she has come, showed up as my friend Paul likes to say. Family at its best. She matters to me.