Saying Goodbye, Alone

In the course of my travels, I attend lots of different minyanim. Recently, at a liberal synagogue, I listened to the sobs of a man nearing the end of the first year of profound, unimaginable grief. I vaguely knew who he was. I also knew that he was surrounded. Friends, colleagues, Jews and non-Jews made the trek to his shul to sit with him as he said kaddish. For almost a full year. There were friends in shorts and t-shirts and friends in dresses, suits and ties. The minyan literally and figuratively supported him as he passed holidays and birthdays without his loved one. Grief is isolating and lonely, but he was not alone.

I was there saying kaddish for my beloved mother-in-law. I sat, as I do, off to the side. I chose to be alone.

Kaddish is about love. Mourning is about love. It is about the love we still feel for a person whose time has ended. We are told that the pain is love without a place.

But what I realized, am realizing, is that mourning is a time to feel loved. Shiva is about being loved and cared for. Calls and cards, visits and stories, all of these remind me that SHE was loved and that I am loved. The people who have space for my pain are demonstrating love. The stories I hear and the outreach is all love. What we leave behind, if we are lucky, is love.

I admit, I have never understood that some of us are afraid of being with people in pain. Many of us shy away from the tears of others, offering platitudes that shut down emotion. The deceased many no longer be in pain, but the mourners are. In fact, in experience, love feels like the space to cry, to tell stories, to value lives lost. When people ask how I am and LISTEN, that’s love.

One of the problems with Jewish mourning rituals is that they are too short. Shiva is about loss – the world that exists without my loved one. But grief extends forever. Grief is donating clothes and throwing out birthday cards. Grief is the Thanksgiving table and vacations and wanting to call. Grief is knowing what she taught me in her life and in her death. Grief is love. And love doesn’t die.

So reach out to mourners. Let them tell their stories. Ask how they are and listen. Listen to the emotional challenge of probate, of sorting through letters, of closing their email accounts. Go with them as they recite kaddish over and over again. Accept the pain that is love. And love them in their isolating  pain.