Lying in bed, Lisa Klein speaks with a soft voice letting her thoughts coalesce around the fruit-flavored drink on the nearby table.

“Someone brought me sour cherry so that’s what I’m trying today,” said the 36-year-old Shaare Zedek congregant, sipping with a smile. “It tastes pretty good.”

Unfortunately, because of Klein’s circumstances, the flavor is all that matters. In fact, it is the sole reason she is consuming the beverage, which is shunted directly back out of her body via a tube. It’s a result of a condition found early last month when doctors performed exploratory surgery to learn why Klein couldn’t keep down solid food. They were stunned to discover the University City woman’s abdomen riddled with an incredibly aggressive form of cancer that had ravaged everything from her ovaries to her stomach. 

“They said my intestines looked like someone had taken a ball of yarn, messed it all up and poured glue on it,” she said. “There was no healthy bowel to work with so there is no option of treatment.”

Effectively left without her lower digestive tract, she can’t eat. Doctors don’t know how much time Klein, who just four months ago celebrated the birth of her first child, Annie, has left. Each day Klein grows thinner, and little can be done beyond an IV drip and an ongoing supply of morphine to keep her comfortable as time passes.

“I’m coping by just surrounding myself with wonderful friends and family,” she said.

Repairing the world

If there is a silver lining to Klein’s situation, it’s that she isn’t having to do that coping alone. Those friends and family have turned out to include a substantial portion of the Jewish and general community. As word of the family’s troubles has gotten out, individuals across the area have stepped up to offer financial and emotional support. A steady stream of visitors have dropped by the home, keeping her company while donations have rolled in with some $5,000 at last count to help the Kleins who now find themselves without income. Her husband Thomas is a law student at St. Louis University and Lisa’s former job at Sylvan Learning Center was the couple’s means of support.

Much of the assistance has been coordinated through Shaare Zedek Synagogue.

“Lisa is the kind of person who draws people to her,” said Joanna Dulkin, the congregation’s hazzan, who has taken a leading role in the effort. “She’s a very magnetic person and has a lot of wonderful friends and people who care about her deeply so when this was unfolding, many people wanted to help.”

So many that a website, lisaandannie.com, has been set up to facilitate donations of time and money as well as coordinate scheduling for visits and keep interested parties up to date on the latest developments in Lisa’s circumstances.

Lisa said her priority is to collect enough funds to support Annie’s day care and eventual entry into Jewish day school as well as to pay for the child to visit her mother’s native Sweden. Mortgage payments and medical expenses are also a concern and more immediate items like gift cards to Target, Schnucks or local gas stations help, too.

“It’s been pretty tough but people are generous and we’re grateful,” Lisa said.

Dulkin said she hopes to raise five figures for the family.

“It has to be a community effort because no one person is equipped to handle all of this,” she said.

Born and raised in Sweden, Lisa came to the United States in 2004 and married Thomas Klein, whom she met on JDate, two years later. Before Sylvan, she taught at Saul Mirowitz Day School-Reform Jewish Academy, forerunner to today’s Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School.

Ironically, the couple’s difficulties started with a bit of good news. Lisa and Thomas had been trying to conceive for two years when they finally found in December that she was expecting.

Unfortunately, the pregnancy was a troubled one. Annie had to enter the world via C-section three months premature in May.

Despite the hurdles however, the child made good progress and was released from the hospital in July. Yet within about a week the family’s concern had shifted to Lisa who began suffering from severe vomiting. She simply couldn’t keep food down. Thomas said doctors, suspecting possible complications from the C-section, started surgery and made the horrible discovery.

“I’ve just been keeping busy and I’m in a little bit of denial and shock,” he said. “I still don’t think I actually comprehend it. Every day I expect to find out that this was a mistake and they were wrong.”

An early priority after the situation became apparent was to accelerate Annie’s baby naming ceremony. Originally scheduled for this month, it was instead put together within days by Dulkin and Rabbi Mark Fasman. It was staged on the sixth-floor terrace of SSM St. Mary’s Health Center.

“It was a beautiful affair with Lisa standing, holding her baby,” Fasman told the Jewish Light. “It didn’t look like a hospital scene at all. There was really a focus on naming this baby, this new life.”

Fasman’s involvement didn’t end there. The rabbi was moved to make the Kleins the centerpiece of his message for the first day of Rosh Hashanah. 

“We need to know, truly know, that our days are limited,” he said to the congregation in his sermon, “not so that we can be filled with paralyzing fear and not so that we can begin mourning early for those we might lose. We need to know that our days are limited so that each day becomes more precious.”

He also urged congregants to help the family by paraphrasing a thought from visiting rabbi Shalom Paul. 

“The good news is that the Kleins have all the money they will need to survive,” Fasman told them. “The bad news is that it is still in our pockets.”

That message ended up traveling further afield than expected as other congregations and organizations in the Jewish community spread the word. At SMJCS, the successor institution to Klein’s former place of employment, it was heard loud and clear. Missy Korenblat-Hanin, a parent at the school, became aware of the situation and found herself in a conversation about it with her 12-year-old.

“My son and I were talking about random acts of kindness and how we have to be there for one another,” said the B’nai Amoona congregant. “What could we do quickly to help them?”

In response, Andrew Hanin had an idea and began organizing a walk-a-thon to help the struggling family. Set for this Friday on the Mirowitz campus at 2:45 p.m., the event’s proceeds will benefit the family.

“It feels really nice to know that I can make a difference in the life of someone who really needs our help,” said the seventh grader. “If you were in a time of need like this, you would want the same help. That’s a part of tikkun olam, repairing the world.”

Dancing in the rain

Back at the University City house, Sunday afternoon passed in the manner afternoons have of late, with a steady stream of friends, family and well-wishers congregating in the living room where casual conversations center on the Cardinals playoff run. 

Thomas estimates some 10 to 15 visitors a day drop by with Dulkin being among the regulars.

“She’s called every day,” he said of the hazzan. “She’s been to the hospital four or five times. She’s been to the house…She’s really been the liaison between us and the overall community.”

Lisa now finds it difficult to walk a great deal without nausea. Enjoying a refill of sour cherry drink, she says she’s overwhelmed by all the attention.

“I really just want to give my utmost thanks to the community for being so wonderful,” she said. “I am not going to name names because there have been so many and I would forget. From rabbis to lay people, from children to grownups, I’ve had the best support and it just means so much.”

She said she feels good knowing that Annie will have a strong network of supporters behind her as she grows up.

In the living room, Lisa’s father, Wayne Winner, a good-humored native New Yorker who resides in Sweden, calls Annie her legacy.

As a retired registered nurse he’s been there to help care for his ailing daughter. He said he doesn’t give in to negativity.

“I always say, I’m not angry because who am I supposed to be angry with and I’m not bitter because who am I supposed to be bitter with,” he said. “It’s enough just to be sad.”

It’s not Winner’s first brush with unexpected tragedy. Lisa’s mother succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage at age 44. Now, facing the prospect of losing his daughter even younger, he finds himself thinking of advice a friend gave him after her own husband passed away from cancer. She told him, “Don’t wait for the storm to end. Learn how to dance in the rain.” 

It’s a thought the entire community seems to be taking to heart.

“That’s what I have to do,” he said with a sad shake of his head, “learn how to dance in the rain again.”