The emunah and bitachon comes back slowly like refilling an empty cup. At first I couldn’t step back into shul, I couldn’t daven or make a brocha. My husband told the Rav, he thought I was going nuts. I wouldn’t take any phone calls or come to the door when someone came calling. The Rav told him not to worry, it is all normal.
Whenever I saw an elderly man in the street with a Kangarol cap on my heart would stop! And then I would get angry and say to myself Hashem, look why not him? Why my father? And then I said “C”V, I am sorry. I don’t wish this man any harm. If I was in a store and I heard one of my favorite songs, a touching english song “I will always love you”, it was like a mantra I was saying to my father, I burst out in tears and ran out of the store. If I heard it on the car radio, I burst out in tears and had to pull over. I slept for months with a framed picture of my mother and father in my arms. My husband was petrified that it would crack and I would get cut from the glass. He never went to sleep until I was sound asleep and he could pry it from my arms.
After a few months I automatically started conversing with Hashem again, and speaking to the kids more normally about emunah, etc. my cup was filling up. I am not sure when I stopped being angry but we were dialoguing once again. I was asking for favors “please Hashem take care of my mother, please Hashem help me through this…”
Pesach we were at a hotel with my 2 brothers-in-law and their families. One of my sisters-in-law was also in aveilus for her mother. The other’s parents were with us. I felt privileged to have at least one set of parents with us. But as we started to say the Hagadah, I heard my father’s voice and tone in the Zeide’s speech (they come from similar backgrounds) I closed my eyes and I was transported back to my father’s Pesach table. I became overwhelmed and fled from the table. Everyone was terrified. They didn’t know what to do with me. I ran to the restroom and broke down and cried. I couldn’t get control of myself and no one else could either. My poor husband didn’t know whether to call Hatzolah or the funny farm. My daughter just stayed in the rest room with me until I stopped. I washed my face and went back to the table, picked up my Hagaddah and kept going as best as I could. I refused to look at or speak to anyone.
My father a”h was a great man. He walked through the fire and came out with only one brother. He was a kind and generous man and all his life he helped people. He was a baker and worked at night. All the women on our block knew that he was home by day, sleeping but home. In case of an emergency, they called my home and he got up and ran. If he saw old people standing in the bus stop, he would stop his car and give them rides. When there was a bus strike in the city, he slept for 2 hours after work then got up to shuttle people to work and kids to school. That is the kind of man he was.
Everything I do, I do in his name. Every tzedaka I give I give in his name. I always stop and ask myself if he would approve if he would be proud of what I am doing. And not only him, but I ask myself if my father-in-law a”h a Rav would be proud of me as well. He used to collect tzedaka for others and when I found myself collecting tzedaka for at-risk kids I look up to shamayim, wink and think “you are doing this to me, are you happy?”.
So healing is a process, emunah and bitachon comes back in stages. It leaves all at once but it does not return that way. It is different with everyone as a relationship with each person is different. Ten siblings can be sitting shiva in the same home for the same person but each one is going through their own pain. Each one feels different and no one really knows how each individual feels, because each one had their own personal relationship with the nifter. Each one has their own personal memories of the nifter. So each one has their own personal pain.
To Yoshi, I am sorry you are going through tzar, may you only know from simchas and nachas.
To Best Bubby, I love you!! We seem to come from similar backgrounds and I won’t fight you for the title of best bubby, but my grandchildren might. Your father and my father could have been blood brothers, they certainly were both made from similar molds. My father used to wash his car in his driveway. All the kids on the block came to help and he always had a clean rag for each. We used to take pictures from the porch. When they were done, he gave each a chocolate bar. Then he went to the local car wash because they made such a mess of his car. He didn’t want them to be insulted so he made sure the car shined for them.
If my father passed a handicapped or mentally disabled child in the street, he would always stop and give them shalom aleichem, a good handshake.
B”H, when we lose someone we love we don’t lose the wonderful memories that we have and that is why as Bubbies and Zeidies we must do our best to build wonderful memories for our grandchildren as well.