SPONSORED FEATURE
THE DL LINK
Linking 300 families facing cancer to a support
network – and their Jewish faith I BY PAULA LEVIN
PHOTO BY ILAN OSSENDRYVER
LEFT: A big thank you
to King David Victory
Park learner Cassidy
Gordon for all her help.
She hands a bunch of
flowers for Shavuot to
a DL Link patient,
Chris Sherlock. “Thank
you DL Link for the
way you continue to
transform our lives
through your continual
love and support.”
Shabbat, yom tov, Purim, Pesach, Shavuot,
not a single Jewish milestone goes by
without a gesture of love, warmth and connection from the DL Link to the nearly
300 families under its care. Whether it is
hot soup and freshly home-baked challot
on a Friday afternoon, or a gorgeous
bunch of flowers bursting with colour, delivered (with a smile) just before the holiday of Shavuot, its patients’ lives are punctuated by the rhythms of the Jewish year.
“I think very few people will ever understand how my soul danced at the sight
of the glorious roses today. I was exhausted after a tough treatment, which I forgot
about when I received this beautiful gift,”
says Sheryl.
These are the constants in a sea of
change and turmoil, something they know
they can depend on and look forward to,
even as life around and within falls apart
with illness. Says one patient, “The soup
and veg dishes kept me going when I came
home, too weak to contemplate cooking.”
Chris comments on how The DL Link
continues to transform his cancer journey:
“When I had a Grand Mal seizure last year,
my life changed forever. After neurosurgery, I learned I had an inoperable Glioblastoma grade 4 tumour growing inside
my head. I began radio and chemotherapy
immediately and soon began to suffer
from the side-effects of the cortisone I was
taking to reduce the pressure on the motor
area of my brain from the growing tumour.
“I met Michelle Goodman through pure
synchronicity – I was selling a coffee table
on the JJCF website and she called me
and we began talking. Soon after that,
Lynn and I attended the ‘Hoping is Coping’ course held at DL Link for those affected by cancer (and then we attended a
second one because the first was so good).
But DL Link is so much more than that –
a constant source of support and reassurance for me and my wife Lynn… unexpected gifts, challah and flowers before
Shabbat… even a holiday donated to us in
Umhlanga. Thank you DL Link for the
way you continue to transform our lives
through your continual love and support.”
The DL Link is there to take care of the
soft issues for families dealing with cancer,
the hospital lifts, the homework and crafts
with kids, the shopping, the lift schemes,
or, as one patient puts it, “The caring, the
sharing, the nourishment of body and
soul. How wonderful you are. You make
such a difference.” Michelle is no stranger
to suffering, having lost her eldest daughter Devorah Leah Levy, of blessed memory,
or DL as she was lovingly known. Yet it is
, takes its mandate
The organisation, it seems king all of Am
lin
of bei