2002-11-01 - 10:49 p.m.
THE LITTLE GLIMPSES
The little glimpses, the quick reminiscences, the almost-saws tell me the story. If they make me laugh or feel warm inside, I know that nothing was left unsaid and no business left undone even if they start by taking my breath away. How soon they begin is also a sign. I no longer wait for them to end. They never do and I�m glad they don�t. Whatever else there is, those moments themselves are a type of everlasting life.
I�m speaking, of course, of those shadow moments, those memories, and the grief that catches you suddenly that follows the intense mourning when someone dies. I�m speaking of the minutes when someone seems close by even though he is gone. I�m talking of the flash of false recognition of the face in the crowd, the song that rings with whispers the songwriter never intended, and the movement, however slight, that seems so very familiar.
My uncle died just a few weeks ago. When I was little, he had a way of making me feel special. He had no daughters so, when the teachers at his school had a father-daughter night, he took me and my sisters. He introduced me to neat math tricks and to science experiments. My other uncles lived far away but, when I was a child, he lived nearby. At one point, he lived within walking distance.
Tonight, at synagogue, I saw him all over. No, I saw no ghosts. What I saw at first was the man who is usually there, quietly handing out the prayerbooks and serving as usher. I know that man, the worker bee. My uncle was one of those worker bees. The men who are thanked quietly when they are thanked at all.
Later, what I saw was a friend threatening to nap during a sermon. My uncle, who attended services regularly, perfected the art of nodding off at the first word of the sermon and coming to just as it was ending. Awake, I could not predict the end of a long winding sermon as accurately as my uncle could do asleep. Perhaps it required hearing only tones not words.
Then I saw a friend called up to lift the Torah. Being called up to lift the Torah is an honor and a greatly prized one. In his prime, my uncle loved to lift the Torah. Like my friend this evening, my uncle would unroll it as he lifted it over his head to show the congregation as much of the scroll as he could. The flash, however, was not the movement but the pride and the caring with which the act was done.
I was not able to attend my uncle�s funeral because I was still too ill to travel then. I found it very hard to stay at home. I tend to be a high ritual person. I don�t really believe in closure but I wanted the feeling of family around and sharing the grief. I wondered how much harder I would find it to process because I could not go.
But while I will miss him deeply, I must have been ready to let him go�not for my sake but for his. Cancer is one of those illnesses that has that effect on me sometimes. There comes a time when it has taken so much and has dealt so much pain that death can be a blessing.
I�ll miss him, yet I�m grateful for the moments tonight. I felt the loss but it was alright. There is a hole but I�ll not fall in. It�s already scabbing over and I�ll have the scar to help me remember.
And there are such good things to remember.
LAST YEAR: One of my favorite family stories, more fun to remember than to live through--A Ghost of Road Trips Past
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
It�s All in How You Look at It
Thank You, Mary
The View From the BottomA Cosmic Joke
I Can Only Take One Baby...
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
