Numbering days redux

[rhu]

I haven't had much to say here about the mourning process in the last few months; I haven't had any observations that seemed worth recording.

But I'm getting towards the end of the eleven months of saying kaddish. Next week, Jews start counting the 49 days of the Omer, the period between Passover and Shavuot. Coincidentally, today, I realized, I start the final 49 days of saying kaddish.

It's a turning point. I'm looking more towards the future than towards the past. I'm starting to think about life after aveilut --- about how I will once again be able to enjoy live music, buy new clothes, attend parties.

I think back to the week of shiva, and how for the first six days I could think only of getting through each moment, but on the last day of shiva, I found myself starting to think about getting back to life outside the shiva house.

Now, here I am, looking back on more than nine months of saying kaddish, and feeling something similar. The restrictions and obligations of formal mourning have been invaluable in providing a structure within which to process and express my grief. I cherish each opportunity to honor my father's memory as it comes and then goes, even as a new horizon approaches, a different kind of sunset.

A year ago, when my father's health was failing, I wrote a dvar Torah for the MIT Hillel newsletter examining the verse from Psalms: "Teach us to number our days, that we may achieve a heart of wisdom."

Today, I am literally "numbering days".

Today is the forty-ninth day until the final daily kaddish for my father, making seven weeks.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Thinking of you.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, once again.