Painful Driving Questions

Tomorrow is six months since Lucas died. Last night, I looked at 192 photos of him that his aunt Lisa has on her facebook. The whole time feeling how I still can't comprehend this.

On the way home from work today, Sasha was with me thanks to strep throat. A coworker and friend was in the car with us. Sasha started talking about places he wants to go for his birthday and mentioned that Alen said we could go to Trinidad. I wonder if she did.

So I asked him why he wants to go to Trinidad and he said he wants to see Lucas's toys, and that he wants to see Lucas. So I said you know if we go there, we won't see Lucas, he's dead. Then Sasha started asking about if he was buried. Then he asked if he was in one of those things Dracula goes in (because we have a book with a picture of a vampire in a coffin, and it's the only picture of a coffin Sasha has ever seen). So I tried to explain what cremation is, in Hebrew, and that when someone is cremated there are ashes, but Sasha didn't really know what ashes are. Then Sasha said it was too bad because he wanted to see Lucas, and I explained that we can't see people who are dead and that Lucas's body isn't here anymore and we can't see his spirit.

My friend didn't say anything.

Later in the ride I told Sasha I wanted to tell him something about my friend's father (that he produces musicals) and Sasha said, "what, is he dead?"

Then we talked about being grandparents, and people dying when they are grandparents or great grandparents.

The way it is supposed to be.

And I have a whole new pile of students, wonderful students, who don't know, who didn't hear, and still friends who for one reason or another we have not told, and time goes on. And I still feel that I have no idea what I believe anymore, that the G-d I believed in before this happened was more like Santa Claus, that I have no idea who the G-d is that I believe in anymore, and that the abyss remains very close. That am dreading the long prayers of the high holidays and the unetaneh tokef. And that my heart is with our family in Trinidad.