This is my first post since I completed my year of mourning. And I am so relieved. I will recount the events and feelings of the Yahrzeit in later posts. But right now I feel so unburdened! Liberated. Freed of a weight that I've carried, because I wanted to and had to. The burden that I placed on myself willingly and that was thrust upon me against my will. Free to live my life again. Ready to embrace the so-called "new normal," life without my mother, but my life, with her, in some other, indefinable, way.
I do, of course, feel a sense of completion. I did it. I made it. I did my duty. I mourned, struggled, spent countless hours in shul, dreamed, reflected, even cried a bit. Could I have done more? I could have, maybe should have, learned more Torah in memory of her. I could have tried to concentrate more when I said kaddish. I could have cried more. I always felt I should be crying more, but the tears seldom came. Feelings, yes, tears, usually not. But how much more could I really have done? I don't know.
Right now, I just want, and I truly believe I have my mother's unqualified permission, to relax, listen to some music, and sleep. And I want to say to my mother, Hilda Yael Kessler, how much I appreciated her and loved her. And still do.
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