Thoughts on the end of shloshim
Aug. 2nd, 2011 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuThis past Shabbat, just after daybreak, I completed observing the 30-day "shloshim" stage of mourning for my father.
One of my goals was to successfully attend every service during those days, to not miss a single kaddish. I succeeded in that goal. [Statistics, because that's the kind of nerd I am, at the end of this post.]
Three weeks ago, by the end of shiva, I was ready for it to be over and to move on to the next stage. So, too, with shloshim, I found myself ready by the end of it to move on. The changes in my life are slight: I am allowed to shave and trim my beard, which is nice. I am now in the general pool of mourners, so I will be leading services much less often --- which is a good thing; while I am qualified to lead services, it is a very different experience to be up front, bearing the responsibility for the community. I have missed being able to linger over a phrase that caught my mind; to me, one of the wonderful parts of tefillah is how, depending on my mood, on what's percolating in the back of my mind, and on where I happen to breathe that day, different parts of the text leap off the page and challenge me; when I'm leading services, I have to ignore that and press on. Now that shloshim is over, I am able to re-engage with the text in a way that might not have been healthy three weeks ago. I couldn't do it then, but I can do it now, and so now I will. Part of shloshim seems to be about numbing grief through repetition.
We paid a visit to the cemetery to mark the transition out of shloshim. The grave looks just as we left it a month ago: A mound of dirt that doesn't quite match the grass around it. The temporary marker that my sister and I placed at the end of the funeral. And, as at the funeral, it was a bright day with the hot sun beating down on us. We said a few chapters of Psalms, and left pebbles on the graves of my father, my grandparents, and my other relatives who are buried there. (We visited on Rosh Chodesh, and so we couldn't say Kel Male.) If the memories of the funeral are distant and --- well, "dreamlike" is the wrong word, but they feel like they were in a separate reality --- well, this was the point that drove home the mundane reality. There exists a grave, alongside the other graves which I used to visit with both my parents, which is my father's grave. There is a new ritual in my life, because I am now in a different category of person than I was a month ago. Not just a mourner, for that will pass in eleven months, but someone who has lost a parent, which is a condition that will never go away.
So that's my transition out of shloshim. Yet as I move into the next stage of mourning, the eleven months, some things stay the same. I still say kaddish, which means davening with a minyan every morning and evening, and being in "the rotation" of those who lead services. I still avoid live music and other public entertainments. I will have certain other limitations at Sukkot and Purim.
I'm not done with mourning by any means. But I'm one step farther along that path. And I'm ok with that --- the time for that step had arrived, and the formal processes of shloshim had prepared me for it.
[Technical details: I led services 62 times plus two times when I led the start of the service but someone else took over partway through; I attended 27 services without leading. I'm counting shacharit and musaf separately, as well as mincha and arvit separately. The two partials were (1) rosh chodesh during shiva, when I led up to yishtabach, and (2) one morning during shloshim when someone observing yahrzeit arrived a few minutes late and took over at mizmor shir chanukat habayit. The "attended without leading" included 17 shabbat services --- four complete shabbatot, plus arvit on the shabbat when shloshim ended --- 1 from musaf on the rosh chodesh during shiva; plus 9 services when someone observing yahrzeit had priority over me.]
One of my goals was to successfully attend every service during those days, to not miss a single kaddish. I succeeded in that goal. [Statistics, because that's the kind of nerd I am, at the end of this post.]
Three weeks ago, by the end of shiva, I was ready for it to be over and to move on to the next stage. So, too, with shloshim, I found myself ready by the end of it to move on. The changes in my life are slight: I am allowed to shave and trim my beard, which is nice. I am now in the general pool of mourners, so I will be leading services much less often --- which is a good thing; while I am qualified to lead services, it is a very different experience to be up front, bearing the responsibility for the community. I have missed being able to linger over a phrase that caught my mind; to me, one of the wonderful parts of tefillah is how, depending on my mood, on what's percolating in the back of my mind, and on where I happen to breathe that day, different parts of the text leap off the page and challenge me; when I'm leading services, I have to ignore that and press on. Now that shloshim is over, I am able to re-engage with the text in a way that might not have been healthy three weeks ago. I couldn't do it then, but I can do it now, and so now I will. Part of shloshim seems to be about numbing grief through repetition.
We paid a visit to the cemetery to mark the transition out of shloshim. The grave looks just as we left it a month ago: A mound of dirt that doesn't quite match the grass around it. The temporary marker that my sister and I placed at the end of the funeral. And, as at the funeral, it was a bright day with the hot sun beating down on us. We said a few chapters of Psalms, and left pebbles on the graves of my father, my grandparents, and my other relatives who are buried there. (We visited on Rosh Chodesh, and so we couldn't say Kel Male.) If the memories of the funeral are distant and --- well, "dreamlike" is the wrong word, but they feel like they were in a separate reality --- well, this was the point that drove home the mundane reality. There exists a grave, alongside the other graves which I used to visit with both my parents, which is my father's grave. There is a new ritual in my life, because I am now in a different category of person than I was a month ago. Not just a mourner, for that will pass in eleven months, but someone who has lost a parent, which is a condition that will never go away.
So that's my transition out of shloshim. Yet as I move into the next stage of mourning, the eleven months, some things stay the same. I still say kaddish, which means davening with a minyan every morning and evening, and being in "the rotation" of those who lead services. I still avoid live music and other public entertainments. I will have certain other limitations at Sukkot and Purim.
I'm not done with mourning by any means. But I'm one step farther along that path. And I'm ok with that --- the time for that step had arrived, and the formal processes of shloshim had prepared me for it.
[Technical details: I led services 62 times plus two times when I led the start of the service but someone else took over partway through; I attended 27 services without leading. I'm counting shacharit and musaf separately, as well as mincha and arvit separately. The two partials were (1) rosh chodesh during shiva, when I led up to yishtabach, and (2) one morning during shloshim when someone observing yahrzeit arrived a few minutes late and took over at mizmor shir chanukat habayit. The "attended without leading" included 17 shabbat services --- four complete shabbatot, plus arvit on the shabbat when shloshim ended --- 1 from musaf on the rosh chodesh during shiva; plus 9 services when someone observing yahrzeit had priority over me.]