Shiva
Wed., July 15, 03:07 PM
In an earlier post I mentioned shiva, the ritual week of mourning observed by Jewish people after the death of a close relative. Sometimes I feel as if I am on the outside looking in. I barely remember sitting shiva for my father. My mother was so distraught that she absorbed much of our attention. I do remember being so angry at losing him that it was about a year before I could bring myself to say the words of the Mourner’s Prayer. I read the transliterations, knowing that eventually I would come to terms with it all — and God forgives.
When my mother died, we “sat” at my sister’s home. Mother had lived elsewhere in retirement, but she had lived in that city for more than forty years before that. People — friends, some who never knew her — stopped by to visit, to bring food, to look at old photographs and remember. The purpose of shiva, like the purpose of funerals, is not to do anything for the dead as much as to comfort the survivors. It is truly the beginning of a healing process.
As I mentioned, Husband lost a cousin last week, and U.D. and I brought him to the shiva on Sunday. We knew they were observing a traditional period of mourning, but we didn’t realize how traditional it was.
How can anyone comfort the parents of a child who dies as a young man. What do you say? I kept remembering a woman who talked of her mother’s funeral all through my mother’s, and I was determined not to do anything like that. I felt the best thing I could do is sit there and listen.
I brought her a picture of Lila, the newest person to carry on the family’s looks. I listened to her talk about the family as a whole; on that particular day, only her immediate family happened to be there, although a lot of friends had come. I reminded her that she must eat — it is very easy to forget that — and talked to other people while she was in the other room.
I heard stories about what an admirable young man had been lost. He was very active in his congregation and drew others in as well. He was known as the one who would stand up for someone else’s rights, even if he had to fight to do so. His father said that he got into so many fights in school that the principal asked, “Jewish? Are you sure he’s not Irish?” I was sorry I had not known him better.
Traditional. Just about the time we were thinking of leaving, the rabbi arrived with a bin of prayer books. If the family is not leaving the house to go to the synagogue for daily prayers, the synagogue comes to them. They need ten adult males for a minyan (the Orthodox don’t count women for this), and so we stayed. Husband was not able to participate, but he could be counted; it was important. The men prayed in the dining room and the women in the living room. I knew the mother would be emotional, as she often is during the services. What could I do except hold her hand?
His friends set up a rather unusual remembrance ritual in memory of the deceased. Each friend would choose someone who was housebound — a senior, perhaps, or a disabled person — and phone that person once a week. They will try to get other people to do so as well. They won’t forget, because the rabbi will send them reminder e-mails. (I like that touch!) They chose this procedure of calling people who need to be called because it’s something he might have done.
His mother said, “What will we do after shiva is finished?” She will not be forgotten. I plan to write to her; sometimes I’m better on paper than I am in person. On the day of the funeral I found a reference to this poetry:
I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead. — He is just away!
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
Think of him still as the same, I say;
He is not dead — he is just away.
Excerpt from the poem by
James Whitcomb Riley
