So. Ten years. And everything about then is still recent to me.

It occurs to me that there are relatively few poems or passages that speak well to the death of a parent: the one that occurs to me soonest is To the Lighthouse, which I know I've quoted before.

But anyway. Perhaps no quote today, perhaps just to remember with love, whose memory is always for a blessing, and just a prayer, the prayer:

Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen.

May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us
and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

Nothing new, really.

My mother's yahrzeit last week--very early this year. Went to the cemetery for the first time in a few months. I need to come back and clean the markers and the headstone: there's some moldy thing on one side, and some birds have been by, doing what birds do. Maybe I'll go back on the Julian yahrzeit.

Yahrzeit the other day. Went to services. I always find it comforting to listen to the older guys using Ashkenazic pronunciation and speed reading through the service, the droning of innumerable bees, some of them named Seymour. The other night I pointed out to Secundo the differences in the way we pronounced some of the words in the Kaddish. Let no teachable moment go unused.

Also, miss him such a lot, my father.

Maybe I need to up my meds again. Or go back to see someone. My last shrink ticked me off so I broke up with him passively by never rescheduling my last appointment.

But anyway. I read this bad FF online and the description of grief was surprisingly well done. And since reading it, I have this heavy feeling in my chest, and then I found myself in the car ten minutes ago keening--there is no other word for it--in my driveway, rocking back and forth.

It's odd how nothing goes through my head in those moments. I just wail. It's building up, I suppose. Every so often I have to go to the cemetery and cry and scream. Almost ten years. Things will always be worse than they were.

It probably doesn't help that I've been surrounded by sad stories recently. The world, it can be shitty. Or maybe it's just mimetic on my part, who knows.

So. Been a long time.

I'm not sure why, maybe b/c I've been so busy with nonsense like Twitter and Facebook, so my narcissistic self-advertisement needs have been satisfied.

Things I'd meant to write about: going to the cemetery for yet another funeral (I seem to know a lot of dead people lately), and stopping at my grandparents' graves, which probably haven't been visited since, oh, the last millennium when my mother was still alive. I was with my brother. The marker grave was a name that sounded quite a bit like the Russian for "little dog." As we drove out of the cemetery, I saw the marker grave. "Stop!" I yelled, and my brother and I went in search. And found the graves in question a few minutes later.

As we finally drove away, we noticed the marker indicating the group that had bought the plots: something about a Worker's Bund. "Look at all we've lost," my brother said. Which was what I'd been feeling as well.

In Memoriam

Today would have been my friend David's 47th birthday. Take a look at the blog his friends set up in his memory. It's a fitting tribute to someone who lived a life of the mind and valued language so much.

There was no bottom and no top, only waves and waves of sorrow.

So it's about 2 AM and I'm listening to Pandora, and Pete Seeger comes on singing Tom Paxton's "Rambling Boy," and I can hear my mother singing it. I'm just curious, do I ever stop getting stabbed in the heart by grief? Does it ever end? It's been nine years, and it is no less of an awful loss than it ever was. I don't feel any of the things I thought I'd feel.

Dog Days of August

Haven't felt overmuch like posting here, obviously. Felt sad about my friend's death, and it's been hot, and the kids are home, and and and. Am losing weight (most excellent), but otherwise not doing much. Not sure why I maintain this blog, but I can't quite bear to take it down, since it's been a sort of diary for six years.

From Woolf's The Waves:

‘Oh yes, I can assure you, men in felt hats and women carrying baskets—you have lost something that would have been very valuable to you. You have lost a leader whom you would have followed; and one of you has lost happiness and children. He is dead who would have given you that. He lies on a camp-bed, bandaged, in some hot Indian hospital while coolies squatted on the floor agitate those fans—I forget how they call them. But this is important; “You are well out of it,” I said, while the doves descended over the roofs and my son was born, as if it were a fact. I remember, as a boy, his curious air of detachment. And I go on to say (my eyes fill with tears and then are dry), “But this is better than one had dared to hope.” I say, addressing what is abstract, facing me eyeless at the end of the avenue, in the sky, “Is this the utmost you can do?” Then we have triumphed. You have done your utmost, I say, addressing that blank and brutal face (for he was twenty-five and should have lived to be eighty) without avail. I am not going to lie down and weep away a life of care. (An entry to be made in my pocket-book; contempt for those who inflict meaningless death.) Further, this is important; that I should be able to place him in trifling and ridiculous situations, so that he may not feel himself absurd, perched on a great horse. I must be able to say, “Percival, a ridiculous name.” At the same time let me tell you, men and women, hurrying to the tube station, you would have had to respect him. You would have had to form up and follow behind him. How strange to oar one’s way through crowds seeing life through hollow eyes, burning eyes.

Also, I think my rabbi hates me b/c I'm always bringing stuff up like death and Kaddish and whether there really is a God or whether it's just a metaphor. Like he can give me a two-minute answer that can possibly convince me. I always feel sort of puerile saying these things, but I can't stop myself from asking either.

Do I sound depressed? I think I sound depressed.

So tonight (or last night, really, b/c it's close to 3 AM as I write this) I had my weekly bat mitzvah lesson/group discussion. And invariably I get us off-track, this time about the Kaddish Shalem b/c my dad's yahrzeit was this past week and I am clearly in the throes of anniversary effect. And I always seem to bring up death and grieving at these discussions, because I am not a real person, I am a Woody Allen character. Which made me wonder, of course, how much is normal anniversary effect and how much is me sort of liking grieving, or feeling comfortable there. Because seriously, it all still feels pretty recent and like it will never ever end, like there's always something just out of the range of my peripheral vision that I'm forgetting about. Sort of like, "What am I thinking? What was I just thinking about? Oh yes, my parents are dead."

I've found myself in front of the computer for long hours a lot lately, not really doing anything much, but not unhappy there. Just kind of spaced out, watching the pretty pictures go by.

As another year rolls round. I took the kids to services tonight; Secundo got to hold the havdalah candle and dip it in the wine @ the end. He looked very serious about this responsibility. My father died during Passover. I'm not supposed to go to the cemetery. I know; I understand; I don't like it.

My rabbi explained that we shouldn't dwell overmuch during a joyous time; I said I understood, but that American culture isn't big on dwelling in general; we're in danger of the opposite, of forgoing mourning. I welcome the mourning in a way; I wish I had another way to feel close to my parents. It feels entirely in keeping with my disposition that feeling sorrow is how I stay connected to the two most important people in my life.

Magnified and sanctified be Your name, O God, throughout the world, which You have created according to Your will. May Your sovereignty be accepted in our own days, in our lives, and in the life of all the House of Israel, speedily and soon, and let us say, Amen.

May Your great name be blessed for ever and ever.

Exalted and honored, adored and acclaimed be Your name, O Holy One, blessed are You, whose glory transcends all praises, songs, and blessings voiced in the world, and let us say, Amen.

Grant abundant peace and life to us and to all Israel, and let us say, Amen.

May You who establish peace in the heavens, grant peace to us, to Israel, and to all the earth, and let us say, Amen.

De Mortuis

My daughter is named after my grandmother, who died, it occurred to me today for some reason, thirty years ago this week. To remember, with love.

Sometimes I think about how irrevocably that particular world is gone: the kinds of people who used to live on her street, the accents they had, the way they looked (the grandparents I knew were all 5'4" and under). It's not even ancient history to my kids; it's not even a cliche that they're familiar with, the bubbie with the Eastern European accent, the self-abnegating mother ("It's all right, I'll sit in the dark"). That's all gone, along with, for example, the kinds of hard candies in glass dishes that everyone's grandmother used to keep out.

Sometimes I think I hold onto things that no one else could conceivably care about. The way the tile used to look in those old buildings, the fixtures.

Whoosh, time to up the prescription again.

Things I Say When I'm Anesthetized

I need sweet air at the dentist's, b/c I am a big wuss. So while I'm under, I say, "So you guys must hate Marathon Man, eh? Or do you watch it at conventions and shout out the dialogue?" The dentist, normally an amiable fellow with a sense of humor, seemed taken aback. He said, "No, it made me cringe when I saw it." Well, sure.

Also: went to the cemetery (would have been my mother's birthday) and wasn't happy with the perpetual care: whoever clipped the yews on the grave next door knocked my mother's footstone next to my father's and just left it that way. I was able to slide it back into position myself, but it wasn't a nice thing to see.

Once again the date rolls round, the 24 Tammuz. Eight years, which is most of my kids' lives and nothing at all to me. To mourn is to love, no? How fortunate I was for so many years, and while I always knew that, only through loss can I feel its truth. All the time, all the time I remind myself, especially if I think I'm being unkind--it's a kind of intuitive touchstone, how my mother might have handled it, what she might have said. I miss seeing the world through her eyes.

יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא.

בְּעָלְמָא דִּי בְרָא כִרְעוּתֵהּ

וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ

בְּחַיֵּיכוֹן וּבְיוֹמֵיכוֹן

וּבְחַיֵּי דְכָל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל

בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב. וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן

יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ

לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא

יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִשְׁתַּבַּח וְיִתְפָּאַר וְיִתְרוֹמַם

וְיִתְנַשֵּׂא וְיִתְהַדָּר וְיִתְעַלֶּה וְיִתְהַלָּל

שְׁמֵהּ דְקֻדְשָׁא בְּרִיךְ הוּא.

לְעֵלָּא (לְעֵלָּא מִכָּל) מִן כָּל בִּרְכָתָא

וְשִׁירָתָא תֻּשְׁבְּחָתָא וְנֶחֱמָתָא

דַּאֲמִירָן בְּעָלְמָא. וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן

Radio Days

Maybe b/c of George Carlin's death, I've had WBAI on my mind lately. It was my mother's favorite radio station, and she listened to it every morning.

My parents were radio people, which I'm sure was largely generational (they were children during the Great Depression). They liked having the radio on, my mother in particular, but rarely solely for music. And they were progressive, my mother in particular, and not especially long-haired in taste, though my father developed a fondness for classical music.

So I grew up listening to BAI. I had Larry Josephson's voice confused with Captain Kangaroo's; I heard him every morning as I ate my Cream of Wheat before school. Once she called up the station because she couldn't get reception and thought it had gone off the air, and Josephson made fun of her on the air, saying that some moron had called up asking what had happened to the signal, which rather put me off Josephson for a long time.

So I find myself looking up Mike Feder and seeing what he's been up to: I went to see him lo these many years ago after he'd gotten a celebratory writeup in the Times. My mother seemed to think he was poised on the brink of fame; I thought otherwise, but there was a story he told about a girl he'd been in love with in high school and college that's stayed with me over the decades; I remember hearing it the first time he told it over the air. I remember someone laughed at the wrong part when we saw him in person, and he glared at the woman and said, "Ha ha!" looking like an Old Testament prophet. I was afraid to have the wrong reaction during the rest of the show, reminded that the neurosis and unbalance aren't just an amusing shtick.

Another year comes round.

When Israel Was in Egypt Land....

Major awful migraine. I should be upstairs cooking, which I will be, soon, after I make my Giant List of Ingredients. My hand's tired, my heart aches. It's a sad thing about maintaining childhood customs, that inevitably they seem lessened, imitations of the Real Thing. Et in Arcadia ego. Yeah, I'm in a great mood.

Seven Years

And I said it to her before she died and I said it tritely but it turned out to be absolutely true. I could live without her (which I didn't actually know or believe), but life wouldn't be as much fun. It's not. For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He
has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime
and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel,
speedily and soon; and say, Amen.May His great name be blessed forever and to
all eternity. Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored,
adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the
blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world;
and say, Amen.May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for usand for
all Israel; and say, Amen.He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He
create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

To love, then, to remember.