Sometimes I think that Victor asking to go to the synagogue last year was more for me than it was for him. Since venturing over there, I have repeatedly been floored by things I've heard or seen there. All in a good way, but also unsettling. It's uncanny how the Rabbi's seem to say what I need to hear, or direct me to something I need to read without my saying a word.
A few weeks ago, Rabbi Nancy lost her father. After she returned to the synagogue, she was talking about her loss, and her grief, and she said "It's a rite of passage. It is. And it's ok." And it stopped me. This year has been marked by loss and sadness for my family, both home and work families. I have been to several funerals, several hospitals, and muttered countless prayers under my breath for the people I love. For her to say, days after losing her father, that death is a rite of passage and it's ok floored me. Because she's right, and I had never considered it before. It's not ok to lose the people you love. It sucks. It can be maddeningly painful. But it's inevitable. What's ok is to grieve for them. To feel that pain, that loss, and then to let it go. It's the letting go that I struggle with. Others it's the feeling. But for me, it's the letting go. I don't know how to not be sad for what could have been. I don't know how to not grieve for lost opportunities and connections, for missed events and tasks left undone. I want to know. I want to let go. I think in some ways, I've started to, and in others, my heart remains steadfastly clenched around the hurt and the hole they left behind.
Rabbi Nancy is assured by her unwaivering faith that there is something more than this life. That those she's lost will be waiting for her when her time comes. I don't have that faith. I have questions, and doubt, and uncertainty. But I want it. I find myself, for the first time in my adult life, hoping that I'm wrong. Hoping that there is something more, someone waiting on the other side of that particular rite of passage.
