The First Week

By Susan Esther Barnes

I learned of my father's death early Saturday evening. An email went out from the synagogue to the congregation on Sunday morning. On Sunday evening, on less than 12 hours' notice, there were 30 people in my home for a minyan.

On the way over, Rabbi Stacy had stopped at the synagogue to pick up the prayer books we use at a mourning service, but neither she nor her husband could get the key to the office to work, so they arrived without them. We went through the entire service without the benefit of the prayer books, and nobody missed a word. Nobody missed a beat. There are those who think Reform Jews are ignorant and uneducated. I beg to differ.

When we rose and faced east for the Bar'chu, we looked out the windows over the small common area of trees and bushes behind my home. As we stood there, a man started to raise the blinds in a home across the way. Once they were up, he looked across at us. I am sure he wondered why there were a bunch of people here, standing at the window, looking out at him. After a moment, he closed the blinds again.

I know he had no way of knowing what was going on, but I couldn't help but think, "He is trying to close himself off from death. We are opening ourselves to death's reality. He would be better off if he would open the blinds and join us."

For the first couple of days, I couldn't sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. I was tired. Time seemed to stretch out in a way it never has before. No one thing seemed to take a long time; it was just the accumulated weight of it all.

Then the cards and the emails started to arrive. As a member of the synagogue board of directors, I've been writing sympathy notes to congregants for a couple of years now. I tried to put a lot of thought into what I said in those notes.

On the receiving end of such notes for the first time, I noticed that some people wrote a paragraph or two, and some just signed their name to a pre-printed sympathy card. That is when I learned that it doesn't really matter what you write. Sure, it's nice to get a card that has something personal written in it. But at the end of the day, what matters is that the person took the time to send one. Whether they write something in it or not is greatly outweighed by the simple fact that they were thoughtful enough to send one.

On Thursday night, someone from the synagogue delivered a meal to our house. When I agreed to receive the meal, I didn't think it was a big deal. After all, I had been eating. But when I opened the bag and smelled the chicken, I realized it was the first hot, decent meal I'd had since the night before my father died. I've never had much patience for cooking, and I have even less now, so I had basically been snacking. Knowing that the meal came from the synagogue and was made with love made it that much better.

On Friday evening, my husband and I went to the synagogue. Normally I get there early to greet people at the front door. This time, we arrived just before services started, and there were others there to greet us.

My friend Judi sat with us in the rabbi's office and held my hand as services started. The beginning of the service is a series of joyful songs. Mourners traditionally don't enter the sanctuary until after L'cha Dodi, the song welcoming the Sabbath Bride, because we are not capable in joining in the joy of the opening songs at this time.

Usually I open the synagogue doors at the end of L'cha Dodi to "enable" the Sabbath Bride to come in. This time Judi and Ken opened the doors, and after the song, John and I walked in to take our seats.

When the time came for the prayer for healing, I realized that, although I had been saying my father's name for the last few years, I would no longer be asking for healing for him. I skipped his name, and went on to the name of my friend Mark, and Frank, the significant other of a friend at work. Then I started to cry, both because I could no longer say the prayer of healing for my father, and because I heard other people asking for healing for me.

At the Saturday morning service, I wrapped myself in my tallit (prayer shawl), so it completely covered my upper body below the neck. I didn't know I was going to do that, but it felt right to wrap myself in it that way. I was so grateful that I was in the habit of wearing a large, full tallit. Many people, especially women, wear a much smaller tallit, more like a large scarf, completely incapable of enveloping a person the way mine did.

For much of the service on both Friday and Saturday, I didn't sing or join in the prayers. I closed my eyes and listened. The sound of the congregation was unbelievably beautiful. I don't think they have any idea how beautiful they sound; I certainly had no idea before this past weekend, when I had been singing rather than really listening.

The songs felt like warm, gentle waves lapping over me. I felt raw, like my body was an open wound, which the waves of sound could not touch or heal. Yet the waves washed over me, surrounding me, creating a barrier between me and the rest of the world, assuring me that although they could not heal the hurt I am now feeling, they will embrace me and protect me from other hurts, and allow my healing process the space to begin on its own in its own time.

I am still in the time called anunit, the period between death and burial. I still don't know when the burial will be. Time is still moving at a freakishly slow pace. It feels like it's been a month since my father died.

It is possible that the only people at the burial will be my father's widow, my sister, my husband, and me. My sister asked me to say a few prayers at the burial. Rabbi Michael loaned me a copy of the rabbi manual he uses at life cycle events so I will have something appropriate to say.

I don't know how this is all going to play out over the coming weeks and months. I know I could have struggled through this on my own, but the incalculable value of going through this in the midst of a loving community is clear.

As I told Judi on Friday night, ever since I was 17, it has been my husband who has carried me through all the hardest times of my life. I am so grateful he doesn't have to do it alone any more.

Judaism Creating Connections

By Susan Esther Barnes

On Friday night during services Rabbi Lezak told two stories about how living in Israel means living in an inter-connected community. The first one, here, talks about how the plight of Gilad Shalit, the Israel soldier who has been in captivity for three years, feels personal to all Israelis, since all of them have family members who were or are in the military.

The second story, here, is an amazing true story about the woman who is the mother of the first soldier killed in Cast Lead, who goes to a concert and by chance (or perhaps an act of God) meets a couple who named their baby after her fallen son.

To some extent these stories are possible because Israel is such a tiny country, where everyone (with some exceptions) sends their children to military or other national service. These stories, combined with something else that happened at services Friday night, got me thinking about how the practice of Judaism itself helps to create these connections.

One of the situations Judaism is particularly sensitive about is the death of a loved one. There are many customs and rituals that surround this event, and many of them create and rely on community connections. When a mourner returns home from the graveyard, he or she is not allowed to eat his or her own food. Rather, the community is expected to, and in fact bears the responsibility of, bringing food to the mourner. This not only relieves the mourner of having to think about mundane acts like grocery shopping and cooking when just walking across the room may feel like a monumental act, but it also makes sure the mourner is not alone during this critical time.

In addition, the mourner is to say the Mourner's Kaddish on a regular basis throughout the first eleven months after their loved on has died. And this prayer may only be said when there are at least ten Jews present. Again, this serves to ensure the mourner is surrounded by members of his or her community during the first year of mourning.

After the first year has passed, we say the Mourner's Kaddish for the anniversary of the loved one's death, called the Yarzheit. When worshippers come to services on Friday night they are handed a program that contains various bits of information, and on the back is a list of those in the congregation who have died recently as well as the names of those who are having their Yarzeheit.

On Friday night, I was sitting beside a couple, when another couple sat behind us. The woman next to me was looking at the Yarzheit list, and she turned to the couple behind us. She pointed at the list and said, "I see this person on the list with the same last name as you. Is this your father?"

"No," they replied, "That is our son."

"How old was he?" asked the woman.

"22."

"Oh, I didn't know."

And thus another connection was created, because when you know a couple has lost a son, an incredible tragedy in itself, and further learn the son died so young, it cannot help but create an understanding, a bond, from the acknowledgement that these people have walked through the fire and have the bravery to carry on.

And it strikes me this is one of the ways Judaism seeks to connect us. Yarzheit not only serves to comfort the mourner, but its public nature gives us the opportunity to ask the questions that bind us together, like "Who was she?" "What is your favorite memory about him?" and to make the statements that bind us together, like, "I remember him" and "I miss her too."

How Are You?

The question, "How are you?" is a common greeting among people I know. The expected answer is, "I'm fine, how are you?" I find I sometimes surprise people when, instead of giving the expected answer, I say, "I'm doing great!" This is generally the most authentic short answer I can give, since my life really is much better than I ever would have expected. It's not that everything is perfect, but all the most important pieces are in place: The world's best husband, a great community, friends, mostly healthy family, full employment, etc.

A friend of mine told me recently how much she dislikes the "How are you?" greeting, since most people seem to ask it in passing and then rush on without even pausing to hear the answer. If you're not going to stick around for an answer, why ask?

A woman who lost her husband about six months previously spoke to my Bikkur Cholim (visiting the sick) group about what to say and what not to say to a person in mourning. She said the one question she wishes people would stop asking her is, "How are you?" She says she doesn't feel comfortable answering, "Fine" when that's not how she feels, yet she knows most people who ask the question aren't really interested in hearing her real answer to it.

Another person in the group related a story about a family she recently visited who were sitting shiva (the first seven days of mourning after a loved one has died). She said part way through the evening the husband taped a hand-written sign to the door saying, "Please don't ask me how I'm doing." I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to try to respond to that question when one is in mourning, particularly in the first days and weeks, when the mourner is still struggling to understand the enormous change that has occurred.

Aside from greeting mourners and friends with something more along the lines of, "It's good to see you," or some such statement rather than a question, I don't know what I plan to do with this whole "How are you?" question. It is still part of the oil that keeps the social machine running. Substituting something like, "Greetings and salutations" is a bit awkward. I guess it's something I'll just have to work on.

Remembering Grandma

By Susan Esther Barnes

This week I finished taking a class series on walking people through the process of dying, as well as visiting people in mourning. On the last night of class, Rabbi Lezak asked us to tell stories of a time when either someone visited us while we were in mourning, or a time when we visited a mourner.

The first thing I thought was I’ve never received a visit while I was in mourning. We come from a small family, and both my grandfathers died before I was born. The only family members who have died in my lifetime were my two grandmothers and my two Great Uncles. In no case did anyone come to our house to comfort us after their deaths.

The next thing I thought about was how, after my father’s mother’s funeral, we gathered for lunch at the apartment she had shared with her brother, my Great Uncle Mitch. At some point during lunch my father’s wife Sonia said, “One story I remember about Pearl is – “ but Uncle Mitch cut her off. He would not permit anyone to talk about Grandma. I don’t remember anyone in my family talking about Grandma after that day. Whenever I think about that lunch, I feel like I was cheated. How many stories about Grandma would I have heard if Uncle Mitch had let us talk about her? What would I have learned about her that I will never know?

Last summer, I said the Mourner’s Kaddish for the 25th anniversary of Grandma’s death. As far as I know, it was the first time anyone had said Kaddish for her since her funeral. She was too strong a force in this world to be forgotten easily. She is still a positive force in my life. So although I can’t go back to that lunch to try to convince Uncle Mitch to let us speak, here are the stories I want to preserve about her.

Grandma was about five feet tall, in her 80’s, and bent over from osteoporosis. Her whole body shook all the time, like Katherine Hepburn’s does now. When I asked her why she shook like that, she told me a rat suddenly jumped out at her when she was a girl, and it scared her so badly she’d never been able to stop shaking.

Anyone who knew Grandma would immediately know her rat story was a complete fabrication. She might look small and frail, but she was a warrior. She was a woman of action. Nobody would believe something as insignificant as a rat would scare her for long. When she was living in Hungary and Hitler was rising to power, she went to see him speak so she could size him up for herself. She didn’t know German, but what she saw and heard alarmed her. Rather than cowering in fear, she gathered up her husband and son (my father), and got the heck out of Dodge. They would not be among the six million killed.

Grandma was the embodiment of unconditional love. She was a refuge and a protector. That doesn’t mean she never got mad at us. When my sister and I got into trouble, boy, would we know it. Just the look on her face would make the bravest person back off fast. No sane person would ever cross her twice.

She taught me that when it comes for sticking up for what is right, size doesn’t matter. She regularly walked to the Opportunity Shop in her neighborhood, where she volunteered raising money for Israel. She never learned to drive, but she lived in San Francisco, knew all the Muni routes, and had no trouble getting wherever she wanted to go. When she got on a bus and found all the seats were taken, she would stand in the middle of the aisle, look down the length of the bus, and announce in a loud voice hardly impeded by her small shaking body, “As a rule, it used to be that when an old lady got on the bus, a gentleman would give her his seat!” Immediately, a half dozen shame-faced people would leap to their feet and offer her their place. Some of them were so embarrassed they never sat down again even after they realized they could. My sister and I got some good seats this way.

Aside from her unconditional love, the best gift Grandma gave me was a sense of connection to my Jewish heritage. Although we grew up in a secular home, Grandma consistently made sure to write “Happy Hanukah” on the presents we unwrapped at Christmas. She had a hanukiah in her living room year round, and a Jewish calendar in the kitchen. If we wanted a snack, in her home matzo was always available. These may seem like small things, but as I was growing up, whenever I heard someone say the only way to get to Heaven was though Jesus I knew it wasn’t true because Grandma wasn’t Christian and there was no way a fair and decent God would, for even a moment, consider keeping her out.

So this is how I remember Grandma. Every year, from now on, I will be saying Kaddish for the anniversary of her death. And from time to time I will wear something that has Tweetie Bird on it. Because, like Grandma, to the uninitiated Tweetie Bird may appear to be small and helpless, but anyone who knows anything knows Tweetie, like Grandma, is well capable of taking care of himself.

For Pearl Singer, may her memory be a blessing.