Dad at Thirty
Copyright © 2016
Tomorrow is the thirtieth day since Dad’s funeral. The end of the ‘shloshim’, the thirty days of mourning. At the shiva (the first seven days) at my brother Dave’s place in Toronto, we prayed Minha and Maariv (the afternoon and evening prayers) and recited the “Kaddish”, the prayer of the mourners, in ancient Aramaic. I stood there with the prayer book in hand. Trying to believe. Trying to feel. But the feeling wasn’t there.
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It turned out that the feeling was elsewhere. It was sitting with my siblings, talking about our childhood, and singing the songs (both secular and religious) that we grew up on. Funny how music manages to worm its way into the innermost passages of your emotional being.
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I went with Dave to synagogue on the Shabbat of the shiva. Sure, I remembered all the hundreds of Sabbaths and holidays that I sat and stood with Dad at the Beth Shalom synagogue in Ottawa. And I remembered Cantor Ghertler with his heavenly (and I mean heavenly) rendition of “Eitz Hayim Hi (עץ חיים היא). I leafed through the prayerbook. The feeling wasn’t there.
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So Brother Dave continued to pray and recite the Mourner’s Kaddish this month, which is a very good thing. But I lost the feeling. And so I grew a beard. I stroke it a lot. And every time I look in the mirror I remember. And feel.
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I remember when Dad was thirty. Thirty years old. I was five. I want to ask him now whether something happened when he was thirty that changed things for him. For us. But he is gone. Mom is gone. The whole generation is gone. And we struggle, coming to terms with the knowledge that there will never be anyone to ask.
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Published: Jun 15, 2016
Latest Revision: Jun 15, 2016
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Copyright © 2016
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