In memory of Lucas - 7 weeks

Tomorrow is 7 weeks since Lucas died in a car accident. We're now counting 7 weeks from Passover to Shavuot. It seems like a long time and it seems like a minute.

I'm doing the suiting up and showing up thing at synagogue while not wanting to be there. I went by myself this morning without kids. After about 15 minutes or so of trying to connect or pray I realize how mad I am at G-d.

I read a book about grief - I'll post the name at some point, it's by Earl Grollman. He talks about something like trying to re-integrate life around a death - how nothing makes sense and then slowly we re-integrate or something like that.

I watched the kids on the beach this weekend and again just had this sense of unreality - how can someone be missing from our family? How can Sasha turn 5 and Lucas not?

This is one of the poems we read at the memorial last week:

Dirge without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses.
Elegant and curled is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know.
But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

In memory of Lucas

We had a memorial for Lucas here today and planted a tree - his family is also making a memorial for him today on the 40th day since he died.

Gabi read this poem:

Hold on to what is good
Even if it is
A handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
Even if it is
A tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
Even if it is
a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when
it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.

By Nancy Wood.

She did a very good job reading it. Afterwards (or it could have been before), she went into the synagogue because she was crying and did not want people to see her cry. She'll be a good Israeli.

I spoke in Hebrew about how hard it is to be so far from family especially at this time, and about how planting a tree also honors the memory of Lucas's grandmother, Alen's mother Sylvia, who worked so much to preserve trees and wildlife. Alen spoke in English about Lucas and what he loved. We planted a carob tree.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Eddie, Sophie, Kayleigh, Vlad, Jonny, Lynette, Lisa, Spencer, Cindy, and all those who loved Lucas.

In memory of Lucas

I've been thinking of this song a lot - especially the part about "I wake up in the morning and I wonder". The song is about lost love, but much of it fits with any loss, when the world keeps moving around us and we aren't there somehow.

Please keep our family in your prayers over Easter and Passover - they are having a memorial there and we are having a memorial here on Sunday, April 17. We'll be planting a tree in memory of Lucas.

I've linked the title to a video of Karen Carpenter singing the song. This is the first version of the song I ever heard, when I was about 11 years old.

The End Of The World

Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to the shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world
'Cause you don't love me anymore?

Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was
I can't understand, no I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye

Last Shabbat and this one

I went away with my work last Shabbat, which was hard. I found two more prayers that were very difficult. The first was Tefillat HaDerech - the prayer for a journey. The rabbis on the bus were talking about exactly where the right place to say it was - you can't say it until you have traveled a certain distance. I was totally alienated from this - like if we say it here, not there, if we say every word exactly correctly, it will prevent our bus from having an accident??? And all those people in accidents, maybe they just didn't say it right??? Give me a break.

The second prayer is the one we say when the ark is opened: "Yehe raba kadamach, detiftach libi beoraita, ve tashlim meshalim delibi, ve liba dechol amach yisrael..." It means loosely - "may it be Your will to open my heart to Your Torah and fulfill my hearts desires and those of all your people Israel for good, for life and for peace." This prayer has been very important to me because before I had kids I prayed very hard during this prayer that I should have them, and since I've had kids, I've always been very grateful when I heard this prayer. Last week I found I just walked out in tears. One of the students very kindly came over to me outside.

I have found something I think is appropriate to say to people who ask "Are you feeling better," which is, "I really appreciate that you would like me to feel better."

Please pray for my mom, Bracha bat Nechama. She fell and bruised her ribs and broke a bone in her foot.

Thanks and much love to all who are reading this.

In memory of Lucas

I thought of this poem. Today is four weeks since Lucas died. I don't mean to say anyone shouldn't grieve - G-d knows we are all grieving. But this is a poem that has always spoken to me.

Unmarked Boxes

Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. The child weaned from mother's milk
now drinks wine and honey mixed.

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flower bed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open

Part of the self leaves the body when we sleep
and changes shape. You might say, "Last night
I was a cypress tree, a small bed of tulips,
a field of grapevines." Then the phantasm goes away.
You're back in the room.
I don't want to make any one fearful.
Hear what's behind what I say.

Tatatumtum tatum tatadum.
There's the light gold of wheat in the sun
and the gold of bread made from that wheat.
I have neither. I'm only talking about them,

as a town in the desert looks up
at stars on a clear night.


— Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273)
"Unmarked Boxes"
translated by Coleman Barks,
The Essential Rumi (1995), p. 272