This morning was the end of Mom's sheloshim. Thirty days from the funeral gone. Thirteen days since Mom died. Time moved exponentially fast. It wasn't this fast when Daddy died.
We marked the day with a sponsored breakfast. There's not really a significance to the sheloshim for a parent. It ends mourning for other relatives, but mourning continues just the same for a parent. And yet, the day seems significant. I made it. Thirty days down. One month. Only 11 more to go. How many more time will I reach for the phone? How many more times will I think I should tell Mom? How many mores?
Today was also my final trip to the mikveh. Most people don't know which mikveh night is their last mikveh night. After all, menopause isn't official until a full year after your last period. But tonight was about three months following my hysterectomy. Menopause is here. It's interesting. Today was the day the doctor cleared me to go to mikveh.
So as the sun set on my mother's sheloshim, the next stage of my life began. It began as I emerged from the warm mikveh water. I wondered what I was feeling, unable to put it into words. Maybe - melancholy. Maybe - numb. I feel I am on the precipice of something new, but I'm too tired to move, too tired to step forward. What I really want is a week of sleeping late, reading, and binge-watching movies and TV. But that will have to wait. Maybe next year.
Friday, February 21, 2020
Monday, February 17, 2020
Shloshim & Trying to Catch Up
Mom's shloshim is approaching. With it I am trying to find my equilibrium with her gone. It’s not coming. Twenty-seven days in, and I simply cannot get into the routine of minyan twice a day. I go to sleep reminding myself that I have minyan in the morning when it should now be a simple fait accompli. Sean asks me where I plan on going to Mincha, and I think, “Oh my God, I haven’t thought about it yet.” I’d rather stay in bed or binge-watch television. I’d rather anything but the reality of Mom’s being gone.
As I pray, reaching the point in the Amidah where I add a prayer for the ill, my first instinct is still to add my mother’s name. Each time, I pause, stopping myself, before going on to my brother’s name, still recovering from back surgery, catching my breath as I add my mother’s name as part of his.
It’s not just me. Yesterday I was ordering something on amazon, and deciding where to send it. As I was doing it, I asked Gavi for the rolodex. (Yes, we still have one. It’s quick and convenient.) As he handed it to me, he said, “Are you going to call Grandma?” I kissed him and cried.
One task I've been avoiding is the note writing to everyone who sent condolences, food, and donations. Though I looked at emails, appreciating every note of comfort, I didn’t delete or answer once shiva began. Though appreciated, it was also overwhelming. I’m doing this now. Dozens of emails and Facebook messages. Donations and cards. I found one particularly special one. For years, my father learned at a yeshiva. He became very close with the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Gaon. When Daddy died the yeshiva dedicated a day of learning to him. Upon hearing Mom had passed away, he wrote, "In a way I knew. Believe it or not, a plant that Bruce gave me about 15 years ago just died on Sunday (the day Mom died). I could not bring myself to ask."
A wonderful member of my framily (friend+family) told me about her father waiting in the next world for her mother. I imagine my father, wandering in the afterlife, not quite knowing what to do with himself, as he once did upon extending a visit to us in Hawaii two weeks longer than Mom, his equilibrium off without her. Whatever comes next, are they settling back into their old routine?
And so, leaving the house for minyan, amidst thoughts of “I don’t want to leave the house,” I thought one month almost done, 11 more to go.
As I pray, reaching the point in the Amidah where I add a prayer for the ill, my first instinct is still to add my mother’s name. Each time, I pause, stopping myself, before going on to my brother’s name, still recovering from back surgery, catching my breath as I add my mother’s name as part of his.
It’s not just me. Yesterday I was ordering something on amazon, and deciding where to send it. As I was doing it, I asked Gavi for the rolodex. (Yes, we still have one. It’s quick and convenient.) As he handed it to me, he said, “Are you going to call Grandma?” I kissed him and cried.
One task I've been avoiding is the note writing to everyone who sent condolences, food, and donations. Though I looked at emails, appreciating every note of comfort, I didn’t delete or answer once shiva began. Though appreciated, it was also overwhelming. I’m doing this now. Dozens of emails and Facebook messages. Donations and cards. I found one particularly special one. For years, my father learned at a yeshiva. He became very close with the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Gaon. When Daddy died the yeshiva dedicated a day of learning to him. Upon hearing Mom had passed away, he wrote, "In a way I knew. Believe it or not, a plant that Bruce gave me about 15 years ago just died on Sunday (the day Mom died). I could not bring myself to ask."
A wonderful member of my framily (friend+family) told me about her father waiting in the next world for her mother. I imagine my father, wandering in the afterlife, not quite knowing what to do with himself, as he once did upon extending a visit to us in Hawaii two weeks longer than Mom, his equilibrium off without her. Whatever comes next, are they settling back into their old routine?
And so, leaving the house for minyan, amidst thoughts of “I don’t want to leave the house,” I thought one month almost done, 11 more to go.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Memories of Shiva Past Follow Me
Looking through my documents I found two blog entries from my father’s shiva/shloshim. Opening it, I thought it was something I wrote in the airport this time around. But no, it’s from Daddy’s.
Mom was so concerned in this entry. She was just getting into her own groove when the cancer struck. Months of chemo, then improvements and a light at the tunnel’s end when it struck again. Unlike my father’s death, occurring after years of wondering if we were saying goodbye for the last time. Between her family history and medical science, Mom was supposed to live to be 120. Daddy had planned for that.
There are memories here I thought I forgot - my aunt calling Daddy a fink for dying, the disjointed nature of the week. This time things were different. Shiva was in three locations instead of two. Perhaps the strange feelings come from not travelling home after shiva, but during. Perhaps this is simply me losing my mother or becoming an orphan.Perhaps this is just me this time around.
My kriah scarf sits on the dresser. I threw the last one out. It continued to tear throughout shiva, hopelessly destroyed by the end. This time I feel a strange compunction to repair it, leaving the seam as a permanent scar in an otherwise lovely scarf. I’ve placed it in the den with other items to be mended.
It’s hard to get started, not just on mending clothes, but on everything. Everything takes more effort than it should. It’s not just the mourning. It’s the mourning compiled with work beyond what my hours allow, helping my children through their mourning, and, finally, an unknown cloud at my husband’s job. This cloud has become completely entwined with my mother’s illness and death, but it lingers while Mom is gone, at least another month. So I go through motions, waiting, wondering, but not really caring. Only wanting this segment to to finished.
Here are the entries:
Mom was so concerned in this entry. She was just getting into her own groove when the cancer struck. Months of chemo, then improvements and a light at the tunnel’s end when it struck again. Unlike my father’s death, occurring after years of wondering if we were saying goodbye for the last time. Between her family history and medical science, Mom was supposed to live to be 120. Daddy had planned for that.
There are memories here I thought I forgot - my aunt calling Daddy a fink for dying, the disjointed nature of the week. This time things were different. Shiva was in three locations instead of two. Perhaps the strange feelings come from not travelling home after shiva, but during. Perhaps this is simply me losing my mother or becoming an orphan.Perhaps this is just me this time around.
My kriah scarf sits on the dresser. I threw the last one out. It continued to tear throughout shiva, hopelessly destroyed by the end. This time I feel a strange compunction to repair it, leaving the seam as a permanent scar in an otherwise lovely scarf. I’ve placed it in the den with other items to be mended.
It’s hard to get started, not just on mending clothes, but on everything. Everything takes more effort than it should. It’s not just the mourning. It’s the mourning compiled with work beyond what my hours allow, helping my children through their mourning, and, finally, an unknown cloud at my husband’s job. This cloud has become completely entwined with my mother’s illness and death, but it lingers while Mom is gone, at least another month. So I go through motions, waiting, wondering, but not really caring. Only wanting this segment to to finished.
Here are the entries:
Shiva isn’t so much one smooth period rather a series of disjointed moments rising and falling with emotion. Memories are shared and laughed over. Family drama bubbles under the surface as we attempt to be strong for our mother. Though we know she’ll be fine in the long run, her anxiety flows when no one else is around (as if we or our aunts and uncles would allow our mom to become a bag lady wandering the streets). In moments of clarity she will admit she has investments to live on. Our father made sure of that. But then the ball drops again, and we’re back in the abyss.
Each morning I attend minyan, feeling both part of the community and separate from it. I arrive before they begin, counting the men. In a minyan that just gets there and doesn’t count women, I find myself wondering if I will be left as the tenth, unable to say Kaddish, making plans for next steps. As the shatz (the prayer leader) begins reciting the ancient blessings of Birchot Hashachar, I find I cannot recite amen to the blessing thanking God for not making me a woman. I wonder if anyone has thought about the idea of reciting that blessing aloud where women are present, and what they would do if I pointed it out. Ironically, as on the same day these thoughts cross my mind an article pops up in my Facebook feed about a famous and trusted scribe, Abraham Farissol, who changed this formula. (http://blog.nli.org.il/en/first_feminist_siddur/?utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=+Newsletter+English+23.11.2017i#.WiP6vWk0f6o.facebook)
The disjointed nature of my days shows in my Facebook feed, from leaving Toronto, through the funeral, and into shiva. As extended family returns home, I am unable to truly sit. My brother and I split the responsibilities - deciding on and putting out meals, washing dishes. Big Brothers/Big Sisters calls. They will be coming to the neighbourhood on Monday. We have to clean out Daddy’s closet NOW! And so this is how I spend a morning. Bills are being gone through. Drawers searched for information to put Mom at ease that she’ll be able to handle this. Rick Moranis’ “Seven Days of Shiva” (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9rei0ExKQJM) plays in my head. We are honestly disappointed the kugel wasn’t potato, and we do have another shiva to attend when we finish Daddy’s. At times I am both grateful an disappointed more people aren’t here. Too many friends are too far away.
I’m the only one still wearing my kriah ribbon (actually a scarf). Russell wears his shirt when we pray. Otherwise it hangs on the ear of the paper mache llama. (Yes. Really.) I will be the only one saying Kaddish for a year, three times daily. But I already know I will miss Maariv Saturday night and Shacharit Sunday morning. There’s no shul to walk to for Saturday. The one nearby says Maariv at 12:30. My flight Sunday prevents me from attending that morning. Barely into the second week and already missing. Some nights here our timing is a bit off. Maybe someone will shine a flashlight outside the window so I can convince myself that it’s lighter. I love standing next to my Aunt reciting Kaddish with her. When we stand so close I feel we are supporting each other. Today, in the middle of Maariv, she called Daddy a fink for dying. It was such an Elkin moment. We were looking out the back door almost expecting to see Daddy kneeling by his garden. His shadow lingers there. “That was a really finky thing to do. How could you do this to me. Bruce - you fink!” I agree. (Fink was the name Daddy called us when he was telling us to do something ridiculous that we’d never agree to. “Go out and get me a Boston cream pie, but not like they make today - like from my childhood with real, fresh whipped cream.” “No” ‘You’re a finky kid.” It always made me laugh, but tonight I wanted to cry.
Got up from shiva this morning. Took a short walk just down the driveway since we needed to take Russell to the airport. It seemed strange to take the covers off the mirror and discard my kriah scarf. Now there’s too much to do before I go home. Cleaned some of the garage. Daddy was a gardener, and there were dozens and dozens of plastic pots and styrofoam cups. I piled most into the recycling. Swept. Then took Daddy’s clothes out to the garage for donation. Thursday morning. Mom is moving things around. No more trucks or rocks in the living room. I’m happy to see she’s exerting her own personality. There was a leak in the kitchen to be fixed. And then my first minyan beyond shiva. It was both odd and comforting, a feeling I expect to encounter many more times before this is over. Last night I realized that there will be no more mornings to lie in bed, no cold weekends to hide under the covers. A large part of my own psychological health is about to be sacrificed to tradition, and I don’t know how I feel about that.
Next entry
It’s quiet now, although some visitors still trickle in. It’s better than having everyone disappear at once. There’s still plenty of food. I busy myself by packing some up and freezing it in single servings. The baked goods also go into the freezer. It’s quiet, too quiet. Mom and I support each other. In some ways we’re also simply moving past each other. My days revolve around minyan and what I can do to help Mom. I’m not sure of the focus of her days. At times we sit and talk, about Dad or Mom’s plans for the next week or month or year. Shabbat is... I lack words. Perhaps it’s best just to say Shabbat is. Mom is napping when I going to minyan Friday night. I leave dinner in the oven. We eat quietly. It’s calm and nice. Mom’s not feeling well in the morning. She says she wants to go with me, and I’m sure she believes it. But minyan was never her thing, and I believe she doesn’t really want to be there. There I’m accepted as part of the minyan now. Everyone looks for me to arrive. I think they will miss me when I leave.
Shabbat morning brings flurries. By the time I walk home from shul it’s coming down hard. There little wind, and the temperature isn’t too cold. It’s like walking in a wonderland. I sing some zemirot as I walk, enjoying the time outside.
Going home Sunday morning seems odd. I tear up waiting at security. On some level it wasn’t real until now. But now I’m going home and I’ll never see my father again. So I sit quietly crying outside the gate while waiting for my flight.
On the plane. I’m among the first to board. I locate the exits and recite tefillat haderekh, my own regular routine. I’m okay until the plane begins to taxi. Then the grief hits me. I wonder what my seat mate is thinking, this young woman silently sobbing, tears flowing from y eyes and down my cheeks. I’m strangely aware that the collar of my sweater is now damp. It’s as if the grief heightens senses. I wish part of shiva could have been at home, surrounded by my own support system. Instead I needed to support My mother and aunt. On the one hand, I could not imagine sitting without them. I needed the family time, the shared memories and laughter. On the other hand, I also needed my community, my minyan(im). It’s too real now. I can’t be home soon enough to hold my children and curl up in my own bed. Keren asked for comfort food for dinner. There isn’t enough in the world to fill the hole in me. Maybe that’s why shiva is so filled with food.
Coming in for a landing. It’s only 12:35. It feels as if this day has lasted forever. Soon we will be on the ground, and the rest of shloshim, the routine of the next year will set in. I cannot wait to embrace it.
Friday, February 7, 2020
Mourning & “How Are You Doing?”
How are you doing? I’m asked this question multiple times a day. I answer in the moment. “Today I’m okay,” or “Not bad right now.” I’m okay in those moments. I’m at work or minyan. I’m busy, and focused.
Then there are the other days. Days without errands to run, chores to do.
Although that’s not just it. Today I’m not okay. Today is the hard day.
I have lots to do. Preparing for Shabbat begins Thursday night. Soup is done. Challah is begun. Today it is baked. I made a trifle. A trifle is a layered dish, simple in the making, but involved in the task. There’s a thin sponge cake followed by a layer of fruit and one of custard. I was supposed to make this for an annual get together. I missed it sitting shiva. With the ingredients in the house, I thought it would make a nice Shabbat dessert. I tweaked it, replacing a custard layer with cannoli filling.
Cake, raspberries, cannoli filling, blueberries softly cooked with brown sugar, vanilla custard, confectioner’s sugar, and crushed hazelnuts. There’s whipped cream for the top, maybe more nuts.
So why is today a bad day? It isn’t the day. It’s the tears. There’s noting of today that brings them. Mom was not a great cook. She never would have made a trifle, or cannolis, or custard. Fresh fruit might be used, but never in a dish beyond fruit salad. But the tears are here. Over and over through the morning. I stand crying at the stove. I cry while zesting a lemon, while mixing egg yolks for the custard. They come unbidden, after days without.
That’s mourning. Days go up. Days slide down. It feels like an eternity, and it feels like yesterday. Day by day, week by week, month by month. Life slowly becomes the new normal, and, while I know there will be a general upward trajectory, days like today won’t end. A moment will occur. I’ll hear a sound, smell a scent, something will spark a memory. No matter the time passed, I will be back here.
Today is the hard day.
Then there are the other days. Days without errands to run, chores to do.
Although that’s not just it. Today I’m not okay. Today is the hard day.
I have lots to do. Preparing for Shabbat begins Thursday night. Soup is done. Challah is begun. Today it is baked. I made a trifle. A trifle is a layered dish, simple in the making, but involved in the task. There’s a thin sponge cake followed by a layer of fruit and one of custard. I was supposed to make this for an annual get together. I missed it sitting shiva. With the ingredients in the house, I thought it would make a nice Shabbat dessert. I tweaked it, replacing a custard layer with cannoli filling.
Cake, raspberries, cannoli filling, blueberries softly cooked with brown sugar, vanilla custard, confectioner’s sugar, and crushed hazelnuts. There’s whipped cream for the top, maybe more nuts.
So why is today a bad day? It isn’t the day. It’s the tears. There’s noting of today that brings them. Mom was not a great cook. She never would have made a trifle, or cannolis, or custard. Fresh fruit might be used, but never in a dish beyond fruit salad. But the tears are here. Over and over through the morning. I stand crying at the stove. I cry while zesting a lemon, while mixing egg yolks for the custard. They come unbidden, after days without.
That’s mourning. Days go up. Days slide down. It feels like an eternity, and it feels like yesterday. Day by day, week by week, month by month. Life slowly becomes the new normal, and, while I know there will be a general upward trajectory, days like today won’t end. A moment will occur. I’ll hear a sound, smell a scent, something will spark a memory. No matter the time passed, I will be back here.
Today is the hard day.
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