Half a Mind

"So she was put in this big room with a few other patients, and like a nurse always in the room."

Yeah, I thought. I know that room. "Uh huh," I said.

"And I guess because there is no night or day or whatever, people go a little crazy. So she went crazy, my mother-in-law! She called in the middle of the night and said into the phone, 'this is it. I am calling to give my last will and testement.' She thought she was dying!"

My friend was smiling. Like, isn't that the funniest thing ever? I pushed my plate away.

"So we all rushed to the hospital! It was like 2 in the morning, and we ran down the hallway and--"

"I need the bathroom," I said. And I was only halfway out the door before the Ugly tears came.

She didn't mean it. No one means it. It's me, not you, and I know that. And sometimes it's fine, you can talk to me about the shiva call you paid or your grandfather who is doing poorly. And sometimes all you have to mention is the dead cat you found in your yard and I see it all again. I see the line on the moniter going flat. I see his skin turning yellow, so quickly, I didn't know it happens so quickly. How they left the respirator on for what felt like forever and so his chest was still going up and down even though he was gone. And my mother rushed in and started talking to him, quickly, desperately, and then her phone rang and it was my brother, and she said, "No, run, you can still make it, he is still here--"

And I blurted out--"No,Ima, no! Didn't they tell you? He's gone!"

And she looked at me, her eyes went round and her face went slack and she crumpled and I grabbed for her.

And misaskim called and I left my mother with my sister and went out because I couldn't hear them and I had to tell them what we needed, chairs and cloths for the mirrors, and where we lived, and my brother came barelling down the hallway and I had to tell him too, no, no, he's gone.

He's gone. But nothing else changed. Cats also die and mothers-in-law can also go to the hospital and I can cook shabbas and laugh on the phone with a friend. I still get overwhelmed with weeks like this one, when I bit off a little more than I can chew, and the kids stay up too late.

Nothing changed and everything changed all at once, and sometimes I can lay out clothing for the kids and then sometimes my mind goes, he died right before my eyes. And I can write and say inspiring things about him, and I can be so grateful for the time I had with him, and still--sometimes--all I can think is having to be the one to tell my mother. Of my brother, his cheeks red, running down the hallway and meeting me coming out the door while I was on the phone with misaskim. "Did I miss it? Is he still here?" he said.

He's gone, I said.

Oh G-d. Oh G-d. My father is gone.

Blast From The Past

I keep asking Hashem to send me a dream about him. I want to see him walk and smile and talk.

My cousin found a video from a Chanuka party in 1988. "Check this out," he said.

There I was, 6 1/2, looking like a Princess/Coco-pop. It was all so funny, my brothers and sisters and cousins in minature. My grandfather, reveling in being master of ceremonies. My grandmother, pushing food on all of us.

Then my father walked in. He smiled at the camera. "Hi," he said in his soft voice. "Hi."

The video was 25 minutes long, and I kept going back to that part, my tears blurring his beautiful smile. "Hi," he says to me, three months after I said goodbye. "Hi."

Wishing You were Somehow Here Again

I have been busy lately. Productive busy. The kind of busy that when you fall asleep, sometimes you're still dressed. Good busy. But very busy.

I went to Coco-pop's Chanuka Mesiba today. She glowed, singing the songs. My camera only shows glimpses of her; the Very Animated girl to her left enthusiastically blocked her with every shake of her candle pom-pom and her menorah cymbal, but they were very sweet glimpses.

I am not a huge fan of the productions they do in this country. They are flashy and fancy and the music they play for the girls to sing along with has a singer that completely drown them out. As I have mentioned before, I think it is a very group-think oriented exersise and goes against my American grain. I try very hard to see the positive in it, but here was positive; Coco-pop's smile and the little line betwen her eyebrows as she concentrated on remembering all of the words to the songs.

I sit in the little tiny chair, filming my girl (and her animated bench-mate) for five minutes before the battery runs out on the camera. Oops. The rest of the time I sit and watch. She is so cute. Then the mesaba winds to a close. Not! The mesaba launches into another song. It is long, the animated girl is blocking Coco-pop again, and I sit on the tiny chair holding a dead camera doing nothing for the first time in a while. And I'm thinking, Abba, Abba, I miss you so much Abba. I am suddenly aware that tears are rolling down my cheeks. Mortified, I wipe my face. They keep coming.

I think of Coco-pop, how sensitive she is to my moods and how excited she was about this day. I do not want to ruin it for her. But I can't stop myself.

Someone leans over and asks me a question. I smile and answer and do my best to get into a conversation with her in my sin-against-humanity awful Hebrew. I distract myself seaching for a word and the tears stop.

I keep busy. So busy. Because underneath the busy all I am thinking is,Abba, Abba, I miss you so much Abba.

Coco-pop wants to know what Sabba is doing in shamayim.

He is walking and talking up there. He is basking in the light of the shechina, I tell her, I tell myself. He is free. He is at peace.

I know that.

I'm not sad for him.

I'm sad for me.