Update on Rose

By Susan Esther Barnes

I visited Rose again this morning. She was lying in bed, covered up to her neck. Her eyes were open, but they didn't move. She didn't give any impression during my visit to indicate she was aware I was there at all.

I held her hand through the covers and watched her breathe. She didn't seem to be in pain. She didn't seem to be asleep. She was just there, breathing.

I sang "Pitchu Li" for her: "Open the gates of righteousness, so I may praise God." It seems to me that when Rose dies, she will be passing through the Gates of the Righteous. In Hebrew, the word is tzedek, either righteousness or justice, so maybe it's really the Gates of the Just.

Rose has lived a long life. She became ill, and decided her time on earth was done, so she stopped eating. After 93 years of life on this earth, 93 years of bringing light and happiness to others, she deserves a chance to rest, to lie in bed and just breathe, before she moves on to whatever comes next.

I realized, over the past week or so, that the idea of joining a chevra kadisha, a holy society, to ritually wash the bodies of people after they have died, no longer seems so scary. How could Rose's body ever be scary?

Before I left, I kissed her on the forehead and told her I love her. It doesn't matter whether or not she heard me; I know she knows. I just needed to hear it one more time while she breathed.

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Addendum:
Rose died at 9:40 pm on July 31, 2010, the 21st of Av, 5770.
Baruch dayan ha'emet.

Tel Aviv

By Susan Esther Barnes

Written on July 1, the first day of the last leg of our trip to Israel:

Tel Aviv, I hated you from the moment I arrived. Tel Aviv, with your old new airport full of jet planes crouched on the tarmac, waiting to take me away. I rejected you almost sight unseen, for what you have not yet done to me, forgetting altogether it was here I first set foot in Israel so long ago but so recently.

I blame you Tel Aviv, for pushing back, for sneaking into my senses, using your warm sandy beach and your Israeli folk dancing and your cool evening breeze. I wanted to savor my hate for you, Tel Aviv, but you would not allow it. In seemingly no time at all I came to love you, with your bustling shops and confusing, busy streets.

You tricked me, Tel Aviv, as your founders tricked the Turks into accepting your name, not understanding what it represents. I may never forgive you for denying me the feelings I thought were rightly mine. When I return, Tel Aviv, I will be wary of your tricks.

It's Better to Have Loved and Lost...

By Susan Esther Barnes

It was sudden and unexpected. There were no lingering goodbyes, no time to savor our last moments together. It just happened. One day, much like every other day of my life, I was eating treyf (non-kosher food), and the next day, with no advance planning or noticeable forethought, I was not.

Though I admit I had dalliances with sausages and peppers, with ham and with shrimp, and a certain relationship with pepperoni pizza, my true love, it turns out in hindsight, was bacon. Bacon and lettuce sandwiches (no tomato, thank you), bacon on salad, and just plain bacon. This is the only thing I truly miss, the thing I wistfully think about; imagining its aroma, the texture of it on my tongue, the feel of it giving inexorably between my teeth as the flavor fills my senses.

It made me wonder, would it have been better to grow up in a kosher home, to have smelled bacon, perhaps at a friend’s house or in a restaurant, but never to have tasted it? Would it have been preferable to feel repulsed at even the thought of lifting a pork product toward my mouth?

Although I will never truly know what it would have been like, I don’t think it would be better. I like it this way. I like how this morning, when Rabbi Lezak mentioned kashrut (the set of Jewish dietary laws), I thought about my lost love, my bacon. I like that I thought about how I miss it, and what, if I abandoned kashrut, that first bite would taste like.

I like that, knowing fully what I am giving up, I know that by following this law I am in a covenant with God. I like that my next thought was, “I loved my bacon, but I love my relationship with God more.”

Intangible Benefits

By Susan Esther Barnes

Every year around this time I get ready to prepare my income taxes. Among the paperwork is a statement from the synagogue totaling what I gave this year in exchange for “intangible religious benefits.” Maybe, as far as the IRS is concerned, this is an accurate description of what I have received, yet it doesn’t sit right with me.

How intangible are the hugs I receive on Friday nights? How intangible was the wedding cake made sweeter by the knowledge it was made to celebrate the first two women ever married to each other in our sanctuary? How intangible were the tears running down my face on S’lichot when Dan Nichols sang, “May I suggest to you these are the best days of your life,” and I knew it was true?

Yet I know it is not the pressure of the arms, or the taste of the cake, or the touch of the warm salt water on my face that matters. It is the intangible feelings behind them: the love, the joy, the belonging, the caring. So I take my statement from the synagogue and I fill in the proper space on the tax form, and I thank the IRS for the annual reminder about the intangible benefits, both tangible and not.

It Was One of Those Discussions

By Susan Esther Barnes

Last night my husband and I had one of those discussions. You know, the kind that starts before ten and goes on until midnight. One of those discussions where I write something that hits one of his hot buttons, then I get defensive because I feel threatened by how much energy he has about it. Mix in a good dose of how nearly impossible it is to get me to admit it when I’m wrong, and yes, it’s definitely one of those discussions.

My husband and I have known each other for going on 29 years now. We love each other. Neither one of us wants to hurt the other. We know these things in the core of our being because it has been proven repeatedly over the course of time.

So it’s one of those discussions, but there is no name-calling. There are no accusations. There is confusion, about our own feelings, which we openly admit, and about what the other is trying to say, which leads to probing questions. It is one of those discussions, and it is not easy. For both of us, it takes patience, active listening, and a willingness to re-examine our own point of view.

Eventually, understanding develops. Apologies are made, not because either of us has hurt the other, but for the part our faults and insecurities played in making the conversation more lengthy and difficult than it might have been. Once again, we have demonstrated the strength of our bond and our ability to create a safe place in which we can speak openly about the things that matter to us.

It was one of those discussions.