Greetings, friends. (LXXIV)

On the end of mourning.

Greetings, friends. Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother’s death.

A lot has happened in a year. The first half of the past year was dominated by the aftereffects of her passing. I thought I would spend the remaining half telling a little more of her story, and be done by now.

By all rights, I should be done by now. Jewish law and tradition do not permit us not to grieve forever. We get three periods of mourning when we are bereaved of a parent, each one a widening container to hold our grief, but each one also rigidly circumscribed in time. We are allowed to grieve… but not permitted to wallow.

The first period, shivah, literally means seven, and it’s the week following the actual bereavement, in which the mourner is meant to seclude themselves at home, and allow their community to bring them food and sit with them. After this, we are expected to return to the world, and resume life as we left it.

The second period, shloshim, means — as you may have guessed — thirty, and in that first month, we are allowed and expected to refrain from superficial activities, like elaborate personal grooming, or enjoying public entertainment. But, after that — no wallowing. We must leave death behind us, and return to life itself.

I did not sit shivah or observe shloshim after my mother’s passing. There didn’t seem to be any point. In Judaism, we are explicitly meant to grieve in community. I had neither friends nor family enough in either New Hampshire or Oregon to make such practices meaningful.

The third and final period of mourning is shanah, or a year. This one I observed, by periodically attending synagogue on Shabbat, in order to stand in the company of others and say the words of the Kaddish, as I have mentioned.

I actually didn’t go to services all that often. I toured the synagogues in the north half of Portland, and didn’t quite find one I liked. Finally, on Yom Kippur, Goldilocks at last found her synagogue that was just right, a solidly Conservative affair with a service almost entirely in Hebrew, a congregation almost entirely robed in tallit, and an almost stereotypically nerdy middle-aged Rabbi, whose sermon was exactly the right balance of inspiring and corny.

I was glad to find the place, because the clock had been ticking, and my shanah was running out. I returned for Shemini Atzeret, the last of the High Holy Days, which as fate would have it was also that awful day that Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel. I looked around the congregation and estimated that I was probably the third or fourth youngest person in the pews. I stared at the ark with its Torah scrolls inside, and pondered the way that young people eschew religion while the elderly gravitate toward it.

I realized that you only need religion if you really know fear, and that the young are largely insulated from this by their inexperience. I realized that I am no longer young, because, these days, I fear a great many things. Tears started streaming down my face. At one point, I pulled the tallit that my mother had made by hand for my Bar Mitzvah over my head and face, and sobbed quietly to myself, partly for her, partly for myself. Maybe for us all. The great thing about a truly great congregation is you can do this quietly in the middle of a Shabbat service and no one minds, and maybe even some people really get it.

During Amidah, the silent portion of the service, I put the prayer book down and quietly named people I know, one by one, as many family and loved ones and enemies and acquaintances as I could think of, and asked God to take care of each one. I don’t even believe in God. It felt good.

At the end of the service, I stood and said Kaddish for my mother for almost the last time. Anybody who might have been paying attention would have known then why I had been crying. I felt seen.

Technically, my period of mourning ended a couple weeks ago, on the date of Mom’s death on the Jewish calendar, which changes each year relative to the secular calendar. I lit a yahrzeit candle, like you do.

The day before that, I had called Adah just to check in. I was telling her about my whole synagogue browsing experience, and I realized that I was actually not ready to stop saying Kaddish for our mother. Adah asked why not. I thought about it, and concluded that being allowed to say Kaddish for her at shul was really the only way I could connect to my grief about her passing.

Most of the time, when you tell someone you’ve lost a parent, they cast their eyes respectfully downwards and express regret on your behalf. You kinda learn not to mention it, in order not to be such a downer all the damn time. When the subject does come up, I find myself reassuring people that it’s okay, I’m actually grateful that she’s no longer in pain, which is at least true.

The truth is that the mother I loved was gone a long time ago. The combination of chronic physical and mental illness took her away from me and Adah long, long before she finally shuffled off the proverbial mortal coil.

The truth is that she was gone long before that. The inadequacy of her own upbringing left her with a personality disorder, and the inability to ever actually be the loving, selfless, supportive mother than she desperately wished to be.

I still want to say Kaddish for my mother, the one who died last year, the one who was gone years ago, the one who never was. But the time for that is up. I’m not allowed to grieve forever. And for good reason.

But, as a Jew, I have been expected not to grieve alone. I am not allowed to grieve alone. In this day and age, fragmented and alienated such as we are, I have not had the requisite community, bound together in a physical place, to witness and be present for my grief, for my mother who isn’t, and wasn’t, and never was.

But I have had you, my friends, all across the Internet, all across the world, who have followed my journal, and offered your kind words, and stood with me in sprit, and made me feel seen.

Yitgadal v’yitkadash shmeh rabah. Let us magnify and sanctify the name of the Almighty, whose will created this world, Amen.

I’m not sure I believe in God. But I believe in you. I have been the beneficiary of your kindness, and for that I am grateful. Thank you.

My mother said to me many times, about the loss of her own father, that her grief never became less, it only became less frequent. So it will probably be for me. My mother’s shanah has ended, but I still have stories of hers to share. Thank you for reading at least this far. I send you my love.