The Seven and the Thirty, and Petition for Forgiveness

I haven't said much about my Israel trip since I returned from there, simply because of everything else that was going on, and the HAWMC stuff, which I think I'm going to bow out from next year.

 But I do love the way a death is honored in the Jewish tradition and that of my family. I like the gentle impartiality of numbering by dates. The Shiv'a underway when I was there is sitting (shiva) for seven (shiv'a) days from the death. And today is the "thirty"--the dedication of the tombstone thirty days after the death.

Small bereavements happen all the time, perhaps even more often for nomads like myself. In the threadbareness of my travel pressures, my rawness, I think I may have lost someone very important to me today. But the space and pace of the honoring of the dead that happens as with my grandmother allows the grief to flow and metamorphose, to celebrate the life that was, and allow what has been extinguished to become a part of the mourner him- or herself, a portion of wisdom.

Some pictures from my sojourn into mourning.

I love this uneasy symbiosis of plant and canopy. 

Here's the whole thing, just for context. This is where my mom and her brothers, uncles, aunts, received guests all day for those seven days.

There were prayer moments; one of my cousins is giving a little homily here...

Two of my uncles, one with two of his grandkids (my mom and all her brothers are proud grandparents)...

It was so good to see my mom laughing hard with two of her aunts.

I showed this picture before, the beautiful spread on the seventh of the days.

We ate leftovers for days. They fueled many practical/technical discussions, including about the tombstone that was set today.

On the left of the above photo, in the red hood, is Rekha, who lived with and cared for my grandmother these last four years (or more?). She is from Nepal, and she is one of the loveliest, kindest, most practical, outside-the-box-thinking, sweetest people I've ever met. We had so much fun together. 

Some of the "clearing up Mama's things" was fun, like dressing up with this beautiful sari my mom had brought her from India. Rekha first...

...with a flourish! And Rekha put it on me too.

We turned up this necklace and clip-on earrings my uncle Eliyahu had made years ago (the uncle with the two grandkids on his knees). I wore them all evening, enjoying the little green hearts of the wrought petals. I thought I'd last ten minutes at the most in the clip-on earrings, but they actually didn't bother me.

Standing tall and with her unmistakable upright bearing, that's my grandmother a very long time ago. The cute guy in the foreground with his little boy is my uncle Eli again, the one who made the necklace and earrings. Maybe he even made them around the time of this photo.  And who is that on the rocking horse in the back, her dress all pulled up her knees? Why, that would be yours truly. About two years old. If we could rewind time, take back all my mistakes and screw-ups and all the people I've hurt and angered along the way, my grandmother would be vigorous and strong again. 

I love this picture--my mom and her three brothers and Rekha, who really has become part of the family. 

    

I didn't think I'd get emotional writing this but my tears are making it hard to see what I'm typing at this point. I offer them to be tears that wash without sterilizing; that scrape off crud to allow lucky forms of life and thought to seed in its place. Grief washing into wisdom. Forgiving the past for not having been different. Letting go of wondering how I could have dismantled my life sooner to get to Israel sooner, which might not even have been good. Forgiving old age and osteoporosis for making my grandmother's last years so uncomfortable. Forgiving my grandmother for her hypervigilance about appearances and her escalating tirades. Forgiving her for bereaving my mother. Forgiving her for dying, which means I can't die for a while. I forgive.

Forgiving myself for all I have destroyed through my unconsciousness, and for all I have ignored that only wished for the water of my attention. Asking forgiveness of all I have angered and annoyed through my heedless behaviors.

Please, forgive me...