How quickly I forget

I don't feel I have much more to say, so I'll be updating the blog only occasionally. In any event, this morning I did get to shul. This is more than I used to do before my kaddish year. I always daven (pray) every morning and put on tephilin, but before my mother died, I prayed at home and did so quickly (15-20 minutes). Davening at home allows me an extra half hour of sleep, which is a good thing. Since I've finished saying kaddish, I've gone to shul in the morning about two to three times a week. I have, however, resorted to my "old" ways, coming in a few minutes after davening begins rather than, as during my kaddish year, five minutes before the start of prayers. (See http://mykaddishyear.blogspot.com/2012/05/routine.html)

Today as I approached the shul, I saw a woman I know who is saying kaddish running to enter. I told her, "don't worry." She said, "I know, I have an extra two minutes." What she meant is that she knew she had another minute or two while people were reciting the sacrifices section and the "Rabbi Yishamel Omer (Rabbi Yishmael says)" that precedes the first kaddish of the day, the Kaddish D'rabanan. Sure enough, when I entered, that's what people were doing and the kaddish began about a minute thereafter. What I meant when I said "don't worry" is that it's okay to miss a kaddish. Why run for a kaddish. It's not the end of the world if you miss a kaddish, especially the Kaddish D'rabanan after the reading about sacrifices.

But then again, that's how I feel now. When I was saying kaddish, I also used to get anxious about getting to shul on time. Frankly, making sure I didn't miss kaddish created a lot tension and anxiety. Even though I'm less than two months removed from that time, it's difficult for me to relate to these feelings. I can't really answer this question honestly: why exactly did I take on the kaddish obligation so seriously and obsessively?

I don't know how I'll behave the next time I have to say kaddish, which, God willing, will not happen for many many years, may my father, who is doing so much better, live to 120. But if I had to bet on my own behavior, I'd put money on my doing pretty much exactly what I did for my mother.

Kaddish, by Ginsberg

I guess I did get carried away by the kaddish thing. I wanted to understand better what I was doing, so I checked out a bunch of books from the New York Public Library with the word "kaddish" in the title. There was an awful book, The Mystery of the Kaddish. There was Ari Goldman's Living a Year of Kaddish.  Wieselier's Kaddish I had on my bookshelf for a long time before my mother died, and during my kaddish year, I eventually read it (over a nearly 10 month period) from cover to cover.

So I figured I would read (or reread?) Alan Ginsberg's poem Kaddish. I went through my beat phase in my early 20's, gobbling up Kerouac, Corso, even Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America anyone?). Of course, Ginsberg was the only Jew in the bunch and he was one of those Jews who runs away from his Jewishness yet never leaves it, a religious nonbeliever, embodying some the kinds of contradictions I find both pathetic and exciting.

He wrote one of his epic poems, called Kaddish, about the death of his mother, Naomi. As usual for Ginsberg, it's both a bitter lament yet bittersweet elegy. He even quotes the kaddish verbatim (ashkenazi accented, of course).

I would like to share these words from the poem, which I find moving and enigmatic:

"Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless, Father in death. Tho I am not here for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I'm hymnless, I'm heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore. 

Thee, heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not light or darkness, Dayless Eternity-- 

Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some of my Time, now given to Nothing--to praise Thee--but death. 

This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping--page beyond Psalm--Last change of mine and Naomi--to God's perfect Darkness--Death, stay thy phantoms!" 

(Kaddish and Other Poems, pp 11-12).

Future of this blog

Now that I have completed "my kaddish year," should I continue writing? My answer is that as long as I still feel I have something to say, I will continue writing. What will I write about? There are reflections, looking back at the year, putting it into a broader perspective. There is the transition away from the state of official mourning. And there is the continuing process of mourning which doesn't just magically end just because an arbitrary date has passed. You never get over losing a parent. Somehow it becomes more integrated into your life, your new normal life.

I think I'll know when I have nothing more to say. I think it will be in the not too distant future. Not quite yet.

Reflections on kaddish time

Did the kaddish period go quickly? No. When I was saying kaddish, it seemed like I always would. Each day had a weight, a distinct presence. There was a sense of plodding through the obligation, day by day. (See post at at http://mykaddishyear.blogspot.com/2012/02/kaddish-time.html)

Is eleven months is a long time? Yes, and no. Even in retrospect, the time does not feel as if it passed quickly. One of the reasons I feel relief now that the year has passed is that the year felt like such a long time.

The strange thing is that other people's kaddish years seem to pass more quickly than one's own. Many people asked me, "when is your kaddish done," and almost always seemed surprised that I had more time left in my kaddish year than they'd thought. Here's another example: a friend of mine's father died a few weeks after my mother. I remember paying her a Shiva call while I was still in Shloshim (first 30 days after burial). So I should have been able easily to figure out when her kaddish year was ending. And yet when her husband told me she was almost finished saying kaddish, I couldn't believe it. "Already?", I thought. I didn't connect her kaddish period with my own. Mine seemed slow, hers fast.

I suppose these different perceptions of time point to the heightened sense of self-awareness caused by loss. Feeling pain and loss is profoundly, yet necessarily, selfish activity. Our sense of self creates a gap between feelings of your own pain and being sensitive to these feelings in others. No matter how empathetic you are, your own personal loss hits you and affects you in a qualitatively different way than those of others.

Lasting Yahrzeit thoughts

As I described in my previous post, I felt out of sorts and anxious during the Yahrzeit day. But it ended with messages that seemed to come from beyond. These came to me during the silent Mincha prayer, the last prayer during the Yahrzeit. My brother was leading the prayers from the Amud, so I was seated, in my usual spot, toward the back of the synagogue. I recited from memory the Shemonah Esrei, the words of the weekday prayer. My eyes were closed. The words of the prayer, as it were, scrolled through my mind. I wasn't thinking about their meaning at all. Rather, they provided a backdrop to thoughts that entered.

This is not unusual, that I am simultaneously praying and thinking of stuff. Except this time I wasn't thinking about what I'd make for dinner, or work, or things I need to do. And these thoughts did not pass through my mind like transient notions but rather were palpable images that fully impressed themselves on me, one after the other.

These thought images, three of them, came to me in the following order. The first one was of my mother kissing me. Kisses of the deepest love and appreciation. Kisses that I could almost feel on my cheek. Kisses that reminded me of kisses she'd given me, of her last kiss. Our connection and mutual love and admiration. And perhaps even kisses of thanks for saying kaddish for her, not the words of kaddish or any effect of it on her soul, but the completion of a job well done.

The second image was of childbirth. Of her birthing me. Her first born. The screams and pain (though in reality she may have been anesthetized per the birthing protocol of the '50s). Of me coming into the world. Of her first holding me. The joy of motherhood.

The third and last image was of tears. Her tears of sorrow for having to leave the world she so fully lived in, for having to leave her husband, sons, sister, friends, clients. Tears at the painfulness of death and all the goodbyes it necessitates.

Kisses, childbirth and tears. Love, life and death. It all came to me in those few minutes of prayer. Thought images so real they will stay with me, always. And then the prayer, and with it the Yahrzeit, was over.