subject: Looking Out The Rear Window: Ten Years Ago [print this page] Looking Out The Rear Window: Ten Years Ago
"It's time for you to pick up and move on. Time heals all wounds. It'll get better, you'll see. You do have other children, right?" ad nauseum.
Has anyone ever directed any of these platitudes to you? Unless you are a bereaved parent, probably not.
I continue to be soadvised by many consolers who may be unaware that I "have moved on". I would not be writing this piece had I not, but asnecessary as it is forany bereaved parent to "move on", he doesn't do so without leaving a portion of himself behind.
Don't misunderstand. The typical consoler is not a bad person; it's simply that many believe parental bereavement, the loss of a child, is an equivalent of other losses. Somehow, things get turned around. Am I wrong to continue grieving after "x" number of days and years? If so, when is the cut off time?
The problem with this point of view is that its adherents do not distinguish between "mourning" and "grieving".
This past 24th day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan (which corresponded to November 1, 2010) commemorated the tenth anniversary (yahrzeit) of the death of my son Ben.He was only twenty-two years old on November 22, 2000.
The days and years of Ben's life were few and troubled. Afflicted by juvenile diabetes at ten and a half years of age and epilepsy at eighteen, our first-born was adamant about living his life on his own terms, free to experience each day as if it were going to be his last.
I have never known anyone else more adept at living in the urgency of the present tense than Ben.
It gets to you after a while: the well-intentioned but errant suggestions about leaving the past behind, the "softball criticisms": So when are you going to write about something other than mourning and grief?' (By the way, the individual who actually did ask that question of me had no familiarity with the scope and variety of my themes.)
Mourning in the Jewish tradition is a finite period of time and varies in length from one to eleven months depending upon the relationship of the deceased to the mourner. The Mourners' Kaddish is recited in the synagogue in the presence of a minyan, an adult quorum of ten males.
I mourned our loss of Ben for one month in accordance with the Jewish laws of mourning. I have grieved for him, however, every single one of the three thousand, six hundred and sixty-five days since his death.
Parental bereavement receives no vacation days.
Do you remember as a kid when you and your folks took one of those great road trips? When your dad was at the wheel and your mom "patiently pointed out" that he should have gotten off at the previous exit? Do you remember that? G-d, I sure hope so. And if not, well just follow along anyway.
There was a time in our nation's history when folks, even kids, could sit however they wished in the comfort of their automobiles. Many kids, including this writer, ended up turning around, kneeling in the back seat and spending hours looking out the rear window.
And now, as a bereaved parent, I havebeen looking out the rear window for ten yearsbut never, I assure you, while in the driver's seat.
Perhaps you're wondering what advice I have to offer ...
1. Keep the faith. Giving up on G-d is actually a subterfuge for giving up on yourself.
2. Create an alternate presence for your deceased child by doing good works in his name.
3. Do not isolate yourself. Life is with people. Birth and death are the opposite bookends on the "bookshelf of life".
4. Many folks want to know what they can do to help. Tell them.
5. If you wish to be by yourself, fine. Keep it short, preferably in a house of G-d.
6. Be busy, very busy. Idle hands lead to grievous thoughts.
7. Take no life for granted. That includes your own of course.
Stuff I regret ...
1. Ben loved skateboarding. I didn't. I wish I had. (Now every skateboarder looks like Ben to me.
2. I miss the grandchildren for whom Ben would have been a great dad.
3. No child can pridefully say of my son "This is my dad." Therein lies the tragedy of Ben's death.
Living life after the death of a child is not an act of betrayal. There is, after all, a time and place for everything. Somehow it seems appropriate-even after the passage of Ben's tenth yahrzeit-that anyone who wishes to look out the rear window for a while is welcome to join me.
