Noah Langholz
June 28, 1991 – March 19, 2013
It always pains me to write those dates for my son. Each
time that I do, I engrave the fact of his death more indelibly.
This year after a cold winter, our yard is missing the usual outburst of
star jasmine blossoms that mark the season with their bittersweet reminders.
Instead, there’s a profusion of camellias to float in bowls and the
promise of peach, nectarine, and apple trees already in flower. When Noah and his
brother Ben were kids, we used to make huge floating platters of camellias. Noah would get absorbed in, almost transfixed by things like that. He resonated with beauty and the ephemeral.What do we pray for after the person we’ve been praying for is gone?
I wish I’d known this blessing practice, inspired by Buddhist lovingkindness metta practice, when Noah was struggling; maybe I could have sung it to him to soothe his soul:
May
you be safe
May
you be free
May
you have space to simply be
Ken y'hi ratzon, Ken y'hi ratzon (May it
be so, may it be so)
And
may you find your way back home
Would that Noah could have found his way home to his
healthy, life-loving self and to all of us who loved him.
Today on Noah's death anniversary, I send out this blessing to my fellow loss survivors and to anyone else in need.
