Cancer is a Crab

Something phenomenal was revealed to us at the Friday night Sabbath table... It began as a discussion revolving around differences and similarities in Hebrew and English. My husband and our guest, Joules, and our five kids, and I were enjoying a festive Shabbat dinner. We were explaining, to our guest from America, that cancer, in Hebrew, is, "sartan", which is also the same word for the creepy-crawly creature we often see at the beach, otherwise known in English as a crab. Our friend, Joules, mentioned, Cancer the Crab, the Zodiac sign, and my 7-year old son, Zach, had a very profound and serious question.

With a pained and very concerned expression on his face, my son slowly got the words out, "Ema (Mommy), how did the crab get inside your body and make you so sick?"

With the remarkable discovery of a most serious idea, there was a longish pause of complete silence at the table. I had eye contact with the other two adults and we all had the same twinkle of tears in our eyes. In that silent pause, I wondered if my young son had been harboring that thought about an actual crab making me so sick for the past 7 months... and soon discovered that he had. It wasn't too far fetched a notion for his four siblings either. No one laughed. No one moved. Everyone patiently  awaited my answer.