Sunday, November 20, 2011

And she was always right...

B"H,

She joins her great love...

Shira Leah:  Here you go.  (She hands me a pair of very old and very beautiful earrings.) 

Anna:  They are magnificent.  Here you go.  (As I hand them back to my godmother.) 

SL:  No, they are yours now.  I am taking care of business.  That is part one.  Part two is this.  (She hands me an empty bullet shell that had been transformed into a mezuzah that you would put on a chain and wear around your neck.  Much rougher and gruffer in appearance than the earrings though clearly more dear to the heart than the gold and gemstones.)  This was Joe's bar mitzvah present, after his first slug of shnapps and the piece of kichel.  His mother gave this to him.   It was the only thing left in his hands from her.  He died with this in his fist.  He is gone, oy, my Joe, my Joe.  I don't want it to be thrown away.  Keep it.  You'll have a son someday.  Your  son will understand what this means. 

A:  (Looking at the simple, modest mezuzah and imagining Joe's mother putting it around his thirteen year old neck.)  Thank you, thank you.  You know, Shira Leah,  you are not dead yet.  You don't have to do this. 

SL:  Maydel, maydel, maydchen... who knows what the next moment will bring?  I am just making sure that the right thing happens. 




********************************

Shira Leah, you died when my son was one and half years old.  There, sitting on your dining room table was a wrapped gift for his second birthday ready and waiting.  It took them weeks of asking to learn where to find my boy.  Your letter was a legacy to me as well as to him.  The books were fitting too.  ... a first dictionary good to chew on, and a copy of your favorite poem, The Owl and the Pussycat, with delicate illustrations printed on cardboard pages, also good to chew on, which, by the way, my baby boy never did.  He actually looked at these books again and again.  Thank you, thank you. 

Did you know that they asked me to speak at your funeral.  So with a baby boy hanging on to my leg I stepped up to the podium.  I adjusted the microphone and began to speak. 

Dear Shira Leah, your life is now complete possessing all parts:  beginning, middle, and end.  It has been an amazing and an uncommon story which we shall always remember. 

At the very beginning you lost your mother and father one by one.  When it came time for school, your step-parents enrolled you in a boarding school to protect you from the transient life required by their military career.  That school was a place of the strictest discipline, most sternly enforced and it is here where you grew up. 

Later, you attended the University of Chicago, an institution whose rigor and pace were brutal.  Though you did not earn your degree you did thrive while learning the critical thinking and the voice of authority for which that place is known. 

You married Joe ... and saw the world in him and  then with him, literally.  Your stories of those travels have always intrigued me immensely. 

By word and deed you taught charity, loyalty, and high personal standards.  You taught me to have friends of many ages and of many interests because life is with people.  Though you had no children of your own, you were devoted to many of us as a second mother, an aunt, a big sister, a dear friend, and as a mentor. 

We say "Eishet Chayil..."  You are a woman of valor and accomplishment, unique, priceless beyond all words. 

"Lechi v'shalom l'vayto avinu" -- Go in peace to our Father's home, we love you. 

I finished speaking and then left the room with my baby.  The next speaker, your nephew, was at the microphone as the door closed behind me.  A moment later everyone was laughing.  I'm in tears and everyone else is laughing.  That evening my mom told me that your nephew began his eulogy for you, "... and of course, she was always right..."  Some people are.

My baby fell asleep in my arms so I re-entered the room as Lior, the neighbor boy who helped you with yard work and was now a doctor at Hadassah Hospital in Israel, finished speaking.  The rabbi would be up next to finish the services.  I was watching all the people who came to honor your life when Rabbi tapped me on the shoulder.  "You spoke nicely.  Do you know where the body is?"

SHIRA!!!  did you neglect to tell the rabbi that you decided on cremation like your Joe? 

Oy, what a love.  He didn't want you sitting outside by his grave.  He figured, be cremated, have the ashes held in a small locker on the inside of the building with the chapel where there is heat in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer, so you would be more comfortable.  The custodian even left a nice chair for you to use everyday for your visits, but never on Shabbos.  Shira, you let me be the one to tell Rabbi that there was no body!

"I should have known ... yes, I should have known that," he said as he walked to the microphone to finish the service. 

"And could we control her?  NO, NEVER.  Is the world a better place thanks to her?  YES, absolutely YES.       Yisgadal, v'yiskadash shmei rabbah..."

(Picture, links, and extras to be added when life calms down a bit.  Thank you for your patience.  And a very blessed Thanksgiving Holiday to all.)

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