Just One Mournful Day?

If my heart carries sorrow every day, am I required to mourn beyond that? How do I add a layer of communal loss onto the burden that already weighs me down, to grief that is emotionally deafening on more than one mournful day? Haven’t I had enough? And why should I attempt a display of sadness for a temple I have never seen, that stood in bygone days in ancient times?

I own a personal, family tragedy, heavier and greater than any and all misfortune through the ages. It is worse, simply because it is mine, and it overshadows and obscures everything else, significant or not, from view. It has been almost 4 years since our Gilad left this world, and something is always amiss in my life, grating on my psyche, tearing at my heart. I am functional but philosophical; able-bodied but not always of sound mind. I often sense Gilad’s tangible presence inside of my soul, but maybe it’s just the absence of his being I feel, the void where his human spirit so spectacularly filled the room and our lives.

So how can the 9 of Av, a day of mourning for every Jewish community, be meaningful to me? Do I need more sadness in my life? How can I find room next to the brokenness in my heart for even more fragments of grief? Side by side; sighed and sighed.

We are in the middle of a summer of worldwide upheaval: Israel is at war, and it’s been a month since every Jewish heart wept for 3 gorgeous, teenage boys on the cusp of life, EyalGiladNaftali. Their loss communed wildly with mine, and our wounds were raw and fresh again as we welcomed others into the unreasonable and unnecessary ranks of the bereaved.

Tisha B’Av is a day of historical tragedy and loss for the Jewish community. We are charged with a 25-hour fast, actions that mimic shiva practices, and unremitting stories and prayers and movies designed to inspire and elicit tears and sadness for what we no longer have, who we no longer are. But where is my personal connection? How do I make the leap from a bereaved mom to a mournful member of society? And for what purpose?

If I mourn for historical, global loss, will the community in turn mourn for my son? If I once felt Tisha B’Av as the serious, carefully orchestrated mournful day it was intended to be, will I ever tap into that again? If I have my own personal 9th of Av all through the year, how can I begin to commemorate a day that pales in comparison to what I have experienced?

The imposed weeks and days of not engaging in happy occasions, not going out to social or musical events, not buying new things, not taking care to wash and iron your clothes all come naturally to a bereaved parent. Who wants to do anything when one of our young, innocent children has been snatched from our embrace? Eating ashes fades into insignificance when you have already watched your son stop breathing and have helped shovel dirt on top of him. Taking a lukewarm shower makes no difference; forgoing a new movie is inconsequential. Even reading about the Holocaust when scores of children suffered and entire families were extinguished cannot touch me the way losing our son has. Hearing of pogroms and atrocities through millennia does not even begin to chip away at the barrier that has grown around my heart to protect me from feeling the way I could if I let my emotions get the best of me.

So then, what am I left with? What can Tisha B’Av possibly mean to a bereaved mom?

I muster all my inner strength, draw from my child-of-survivor upbringing and hold onto the framework of religion I’ve chosen not to abandon. This world is teeming with questions, and the answers are not ours to know. We struggle intellectually, carefully examine sources, challenge fundamental concepts, and some of us manage to keep the faith, and try to make sense of the world and our place in it.

To me, Tisha B’Av may not be what it is for others. I may feel disconnected from the overwhelming tragedies that befell our collective tribe. Or, maybe I have a greater understanding of loss and mourning because Gilad experienced what generations upon generations have lived through – the pain, the struggle, all the while not understanding why, and eventually succumbing to the inevitable. Although it was not about me, as Gilad used to remind me, as his mother, Gilad’s illness and passing irrevocably changed who I am and how I look at the world. I bore witness to Gilad’s struggle and passing, and that is my Tisha B’Av.

For everyone else, today is the 10th of Av, and by midday the laundry and haircuts and shopping will begin again with abandon. The caterers and party-planners will start to prepare for weddings this Sunday, and the glorious, unrestricted part of the summer will start anew. But not for us, never for us. We have threads of Tisha B’Av woven into our life. I endured Gilad’s suffering, and for me, every day may not be Tisha B’Av, but we don’t have just one mournful day.