A few days ago it was my parents’ 64th wedding anniversary. Usually they celebrate the occasion with a meal out in a restaurant and we buy them cards and flowers and make jokes about how genuinely miraculous it is that they haven’t actually murdered one another yet.
We’re always surprised our dad hasn’t killed our mum due to his erratic driving. He is fairly ancient now, a bit like an old giant turtle. He got his licence in Aden around 1949 when there were more giant turtles there than cars and nobody had ever heard of traffic lights or contraflows. Or the Highway Code. Or health. Or safety. (We’re also surprised our mum hasn’t killed our dad because of her erratic nerves which she blames on my dad’s driving. And us.)
This year’s anniversary was different. My parents had to sit shiva because my brother died suddenly last week in Los Angeles, where he has lived most of his life. It wasn’t possible to have his body flown back to London and my parents were not able to get to LA so they had a service for him this evening at their synagogue, with prayers, a meal and saying the Kaddish.
The last time I came to my dad’s synagogue it was for his 90th birthday. We celebrated that occasion with an abundance of balloons and a big fish buffet. There were no balloons today, of course, but we did at least still have the fish.
Turns out death is quite expensive. My parents had been saving up for next Pesach to pay for another all-inclusive, unlimited-wine, leave-all-the-pesky-chometz-behind-you, kosher-for-Passover-hotel holiday for themselves and whichever family member they’d take along to help them manage.
I was the chosen one to be their carer last time. I went to Barcelona for Pesach and all I got was this lousy alcohol problem and an addiction to pickled herrings. But that’s another story.
Now their savings of £2,500 for next Pesach have gone on today’s affair and the rest as a contribution to my brother’s funeral.
The money doesn’t matter to them. They would give everything to have their son back but we’ve all got to come to terms with the fact that this will never happen.
I’m truly grateful and appreciative for the ritual of the shiva. It’s given my parents a dedicated time to do nothing but mourn. I haven’t been doing it properly, the way my parents have. My mirrors remain uncovered though to be fair I’m rarely brave enough to look in them these days anyway - and I haven’t abstained from washing. I’ve visited my parents every day taking them everything but doughnuts. They can’t have doughnuts in their shiva.
I want my Chanukah doughnuts unmarred by mourning. Is it really terrible of me that I’m guiltily glad that we can still have Chanukah this year? My favourite Jewish festival. What a simple joy it will be to light Chanukah candles instead of the memorial candles. Or at least as well as.
The day after my brother died I went on the big anti-antisemitism march and then on to an old friend’s memorial drinks. I found both oddly comforting. Perhaps it was a sort of mourning meditation of my own, a way of connecting with, or starting to process, the loss and the grief. Only a few days before my brother died the two of us had been vehemently disagreeing about how Israel should deal with the attacks of 7th October. Obviously, as usual, I had been completely in the right and my brother had been totally in the wrong, but that’s not important right now. And he can’t tell you otherwise.
I have cried with relief over every released hostage. The tears have streamed down my face with every child and adult freed. Almost immediately after, my tears of happiness are joined by tears of sorrow that my brother and I will never again argue about politics, or who gets the last of the Coco Pops, or who was our dad’s favourite when we were kids.
Mostly I have felt desperately sad for my parents. They have lost their only son and, although the shiva has now ended, we know that the grieving never will.
