Bye-Bye Cancer

Carol:

Somehow I heard we were going to be swinging dead chickens over our heads and throwing them into the ocean, because Libby had heard of a tradition that related to this. I wasn’t sure of that, so I called my friend who’s Orthodox Jewish and said, what’s the story on the dead chicken?

Apparently what we’ve done is we’ve taken two traditions from Judaism. One was called Tashlich, and basically what we did at Rosh Hashana time was cast off our sins by emptying our pockets of bread crumbs and throwing them into water. It was an act of self-purification.

Now, a few weeks later comes Yom Kippur. A tradition evolved called Kaporot. This was on the day before Yom Kippur. You swung a fowl over your head three times. It could be a rooster, a chicken, some sort of duck. But it was still alive, and what you said was, this is my substitute, my vicarious offering, my atonement. This chicken or hen or cock shall meet death, but I will enjoy a long, pleasant life of peace. Then the chicken was killed. You either ate it or you gave it away to the poor. All the sins and the bad things went with the chicken.

So what we did was a combination of the two traditions. We threw our chickens into the water. We used rubber chickens because I really didn’t want to swing a live chicken, and certainly not a dead one, into the ocean. So thus is the life of one little rubber chicken. Bye-bye chicken, bye-bye cancer.

Debbie:

Libby said, You know, Debbie, in the Jewish religion there’s this tradition where you take a chicken and you swing it over your head, you throw it into the water, you say, goodbye troubles, and your troubles are gone. And I said, well, we should do that! [ laughter ] She said all right. So I went down to Carol’s with Libby, and we, I brought three chickens. I wanted to do real chickens, but Carol thought they were too bloody. So I got these fake rubber chickens. [ laughter ]

Carol:

So what we did was muddle two traditional ceremonies, both involved with sins and atonement and throwing objects into oceans and lakes even though our cancers had nothing at all to do with our sinning. Weird, huh?

Debbie:

This represents our troubles. Our cancer is no longer. This is what Carol said she felt like.

Carol:

Yup.

Libby:

Being poked and prodded.

Libby:

So now what we’re going to do—

Libby:

Let’s check that breast one more time. [ laughter ] Can’t find anything in that one. How ’bout the other one? [ laughter ]

Libby:

Cancer’s right there. We’re going to have to cut it out. It won’t disfigure you much.         [ laughter ]

Libby:

And then we can take a flap from your butt and put it right there, and give you a nice little breast.

Carol:

This is how I felt after my surgery and things. And sometimes I feel this way, like, oh my God, someone’s kind of just hung me up.

Debbie:

Okay. This is how you feel after you have chemo, see? [ laughter ]

Carol:

I think we should throw them into the water and say, cancer be gone.

Debbie:

What are we going to yell?

Carol:

Yahoo!

Libby:

Yahoo!