Zero, Seven, Thirty
The sudden loss of a life as an unforeseen step in my Jewish journey
Zero. My dad always carried a gift of, shall we say, “light premonition.” He described the housing and financial crisis of 2008, and the government’s response… in 2006. He once was the only person in his whole church congregation to see that a traveling missionary was a scammer. But instead of embarrassing him in front of 20 people, he waited until after the church had raised money for him and sent him on his way, then predicted the exact casino/bar he would be at as soon as he took off, and then (after my saying “yeah right, dad. how can you know that?”) drove us both there — to prove he was right, to say some form of “not cool, man,” and then just… walk away.
The two weeks before he passed, I had actually become very interested in the history and the work of the Chevra Kadisha, חֶבְרָה קַדִּישָׁא, the dedicated group tasked with the ritual preparation of the (Jewish) dead for burial. I had just reached out to my local synagogue and Jewish cemetery to inquire about my local Chevra Kadisha, wanting to learn about joining it. I don’t have an affinity for the morbid (far from it), but rather I found myself incredibly compelled to look into contributing my time and energy to that kind of work. Something about it felt more important than anything — chesed shel emet, חסד של אמת, the truest act of kindness which cannot be repaid — and I wanted to be a part of it. Looking back, it feels as if some part of me knew I should be prepared for some acts of ultimate kindness, prepared to face a body no longer living, and prepared to jump into what it means to die and leave the world behind — without fear or hesitancy. I thought of Jewish burial preparation when I went with my family to the funeral home (thinking “I wonder how few Jews have ever been in here with how rural and non-Jewish this part of the country is?”), and it grounded me. It led my impulse to rest my hand on my father’s head and ask his forgiveness, to turn to my sister and share the meaning of Baruch Dayan Ha’Emet.
“blessed is the true judge. It means that this is out of our control, now in the hands of a G-d worthy of our trust to care for our father.”
Typically, the period between the death of a loved one and the return home to focus on mourning is called Aninut, אנינוּת, in Judaism, and it lasts a few days (until the burial). This period isn’t described as mourning, but as shock and disorientation. The ones left to grieve the loss are not yet mourners, but are onen, אונֵן. They are tasked with making very quick funeral arrangements, notifying family, gathering legal requirements; it’s a real whirlwind of exhaustion by the time shiva comes around.
This is where I was stuck for 12 of the longest days of my life. Traditionally, the space between the death of a Jew and the burial of a Jew is less than three days — the deceased is laid to rest as quickly as possible so their loved ones can move from loss to mourning. The Jewish convert doesn’t have this luxury; their family may have any number of cultural practices around death and dying, they may live in a part of the country with none of these resources, or they may have wanted something completely different with their remains (which, by all means, should be respected and honored). I didn’t need to know this a month ago, but cremation in a rural area of the US can take up to two weeks. I also can tell you the distance between the apartment I share with my husband & three cats is precisely 233 miles away from the home half-built by my father and now inhabited by his widow, because I’ve driven it about 7 times in the last four weeks.
In my family, I am the oldest sibling and the “good under pressure” talker whenever official people are involved (doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, inpatient clinics, insurance agents, you get the picture). Throw into this family equation two young siblings (one of which hasn’t even gotten to turn twenty-one yet), and a Deaf mother, and you get… well, me. A very busy, very coordinating, very disoriented me. Despite being in the home where my dad took his last breath, I didn’t have the space to sit and let it feel real; I was an onen, not yet able to move into a stage of simply mourning. I’ve written before about conversion to Judaism being an isolating experience, but this was an amplification. When I finally returned home for a week of dedicated nothingness, I sat with my newly-married, freshly-reality-checked husband and shared the ways in which I want to ensure our future children have the blessing of a short Aninut. Bury me quickly in linen or cotton (in some state where it’s legal to bury a body without a casket, preferably).
Seven. The literal meaning of the word Shiva, שבעה, used to refer to a week of oscillating intensity in dedicated grief. No work, no school, no typically pleasurable activities. I’ve been finding that most practitioners of modern or liberal Judaism don’t really set aside this week for hardcore mourning, and for a gamut of practical reasons. A week off to sit at home? In this economy? After paying for a funeral? So, naturally, many of us choose to incorporate elements of shiva that feel most worth the effort. Some Jews only spend a day or a few observing shiva, despite the phrase “two days of seven” being a bit silly. I am conveniently in a study chapter of the Jewish life cycle as part of a course, so I just skipped ahead to… well, the “end,” and absorbed all the knowledge I could about what Jewish mourning looked like. Diving into timeless traditions used by countless Jews before me to deal with similar feelings gave me a sense of comfort (and let’s be honest, distraction). A list of shiva rituals, which is probably not exhaustive:
- sit on the floor or lower stools
- refrain from sex, wearing leather shoes, unnecessary bodily comforts (ahem, Yom Kippur called, they want their avoidance of pleasure back)
- don’t leave the home unnessarily
- when you do leave the home, put small rocks in your shoes to remind you of the discomfort of grief as you walk around
- have meals, chores and daily tasks done by those who love and support you
- cover mirrors or turn them backwards
- light a shiva candle which burns for seven days (…unless you leave it near a draft, as I did and then learned that it will burn two days faster in this case)
- say the mourner’s kaddish, קדיש יתום, daily and traditionally in the presence of a minyan (quorum of ten Jews) — many liberal or modern Jews make the practice of reciting Kaddish their own, with or without a minyan
- wear krieyah, קריעה, a torn garment or ribbon to signify mourning. This may be a ribbon or a torn piece of clothing, typically rent either at the news of death or after a funeral service eulogy.
- eat round foods as a symbol of life and wholeness
- refrain from work or study for seven days
In some shape or form, I did most of these in my week of rest from preparations and caring for my family. The one I didn’t expect to be so moving and powerful was the tradition of covering all of one’s mirrors in the home, and sometimes windows as well. After returning home, lighting shabbos candles, and enjoying a big loving meal prepared by my partner (the joy of keeping shabbat takes precedent over grief), I began covering all the mirrors in the home. I knew we had a lot of mirrors — thanks, years of thrifting habits inherited from my grandmother — so it took a good part of the morning to take them off the wall or find appropriate covers for all of them. Then it came to the bathroom; I asked my (not-Jewish, not-spiritual, not-religious) spouse what he thought about me covering the bathroom mirror. I was uncertain if it would be imposing too much on our tiny not-yet-officially-Jewish-although-there-are-candles-and-mezuzot-everywhere household. Unquestioningly, he took my grandmother’s scarf from my hand, and went to work pinning it up for me — at a height where he could easily see over it, but at which it would be completely covered for me. To say I was touched by this act of love would be an understatement.
Over the course of the week, having the mirrors covered brought so many layers of meaning to me. I realized how often I tend to glance in a mirror as I pass it: to check my hair, to see my shirt is tucked in, because the motion catches my eye, because it’s a bright reflection of light in a room with too-high-rent and not enough windows. Every glance resulted in not seeing what I was accustomed to seeing; it was a constant, gentle prompt that something was different. Each time I went to look for myself, I was greeted with the notion that at least a part of me wasn’t there. My home didn’t reflect light in its typical way for a week. The walls were still, rather than projecting back whatever motion and life was happening before them. And my lessons from my week of covered mirrors weren’t exclusively internal either — I had to rely on those around me for the silliest things. I didn’t peek under my towels and scarves to see if I had something in my teeth, I asked my husband. When a friend came over to help me with chores, I relied on her to make sure I rubbed in all my sunscreen. It forced me to step outside of myself to care for my physical needs, and at the same time it encouraged me to be mindful and aware of the fact that just because I can no longer observe or interact with something doesn’t mean it is gone.
I’m sure there are other benefits that I can’t put into words at this time; so profound was this small, old practice. Everything I did, I found meaningful. Sitting on the ground or on pillows felt natural and comforting, I couldn’t get any closer to the support of the entire Earth. From the vantage point of the floor, I was always looking at the empty chairs above me. It was both a comforting base below me, and an unfortunate reminder before me. For my torn krieyah, I cut a square from a scarf my father gave me and pinned it to my shirt whenever I left the house. The threads became unwoven, I left bits and pieces behind me as I moved throughout the world. The remainder of the scarf will become a part of a tallis shawl I have been sewing to keep my hands busy while my mind races. He was not Jewish, but had a fondness for the Jewish people and was deeply spiritual himself — it will be lovely to wrap myself in the threads given to me by him when I set aside time to pray and bless the divine.
My father was wonderfully creative, and made so so many things with his own hands; paintings, walls, upholstery, drawings, forged metal, leather work, food, entire rooms from the ground up. I kept my hands busy during my week of shiva not only to stave off the void, but also to connect with his lifelong act of creation. I had said Kaddish before, but was not familiar with the blessing. I spent the week drawing and writing the mourners kaddish in a calligraphic design, becoming more deeply acquainted with the words, the sounds, the meaning. It is incredibly imperfect, remarkably meaningful to me, and now hangs in a corner of my home with photos of my father and my small urn of his cremains, where I say the kaddish each night before I go to bed.
Thirty days of getting used to the loss of a loved one are referred to as shloshim in Judaism. Since the disposition of my father’s body took such a length of time, the end of this thirty days isn’t actually a month from his death — that would have been yesterday, which absolutely stuns me, as I can’t believe how quickly it flew by — but thirty days from his being laid to rest. Thirty days since we received his ashes. That period ends, fittingly, on my father’s birthday, July 30th. The passage of time isn’t purely temporal, but physical as well; in the days since my father’s death, the Earth has traveled just about 50 million miles in its orbit. The place where my father’s soul and body were last together is now fifty. million. miles. from here. The distance is gob-smacking. From aninut, to shiva, to shloshim, the harsh edges of the gap left behind have softened, blurred, melded together with the fabric of life left behind. The process of what happens after death is far from over, but I am grateful for the space and the passage of time as it carves a path for the rest of my family to forge forward.
זכרונו לברכה
Zichrono Livracha
May His Memory Be A Blessing.
