Passover: More than Four Questions

I asked Noah if he would make his aunt’s delicious macaroons for our Passover seder last year, and he agreed. A few days later, he was dead. Instead of 10 people at our house for a celebratory meal, we had 100 people for a memorial service after his funeral. Instead of the four traditional questions of the seder, we have endless questions that will never be answered. 

Why did a plague of darkness descend on our son?

What do we tell the child who is too fearful and ashamed to speak his pain?

Why didn’t the angel of death pass over our house?

Why is this year different from all other years?

Will this once-precious holiday always be tainted for our family?

We couldn’t face hosting Passover so soon after Noah's first death anniversary and were lucky to be invited to a friend’s house. Despite both feeling teary that morning, my husband and I were able to enjoy the evening. But it’s hard not to lose myself in the salt water and horseradish on the Passover table, symbols of bitter tears and slavery. It’s easy to forget the boiled eggs, symbolizing hope and rebirth, and the sweet haroset (fruit-nut spread) that are also part of the ritual. We are meant to meld the symbols together in a traditional sandwich of matzoh, haroset, and horseradish just before the meal. 

As I remember Noah’s love for Passover and other family gatherings, can I give myself permission to let the sweet outweigh the bitter?

In contemporary interpretations of Passover, Jews are encouraged to ponder our personal mitzrayim (Egypt, narrow place, oppression) and envision a way to cross over to freedom. Like our ancestors, we are invited to decide what we need to leave behind and what to take with us on the journey. 

Any loss can throw us into a dark pit, but how much murkier the path out when beset with the complicated grief of suicide loss. How much more constricting the sorrow when full of guilt and anger at ourselves and our loved one.

How long had Noah suffered in that narrow, constricted place in his mind?

How ready am I to leave behind self-blame for being a bad mother, helpless to save my child?

How can I carry with me the image of my son strong, healthy, and alive?

When will I be freed from the need to be above all a mourner, with deep grieving the center of my days?

Survivors all have triggers we can’t avoid. I recently heard other mothers speak of the cereal aisle in the supermarket, a favorite piece of clothing, a spot on a crowded freeway. For me, it’s ads for the epic “Noah” movie that seem to be everywhere lately, reminders of our Noah and the biblical one . Are these ads triggering other family and friends? No, I think as I drive to an appointment or a meal with friends, I don’t want to think about that right now. This sends me down a rabbit hole of no’s and hurtles me back into the poetry I’ve been avoiding for a year. It's still rough, like the torn edges of pictures in the magnificent grief collages of Sharon Strouse . But I need to get this ‘no’ off my chest and out there where it can resound. To be continued . . .

 

NO

Noah – his name blaring

from movie billboards, signs

of disaster at every turn. No

reminders please.

His name engraved

on a stone marker, rain collecting

inside the O’s. No --

this can’t be real.

No no NO -- my screams

that day. Not

my beautiful boy. No

hope. No

more. No knowing

what or why or how bad

or how to help. A no

that can never

be undone. A life

canceled, a mission

aborted, a family

broken.

Please

no more no’s now --

just the sweet ones

we used to sing him as a baby--

When the No-no-noah goes

bob-bob-bobbing along.*

*Note: All poetry on this blog is original unless attributed to others.

Still Struggling with Others' Reactions

It’s not as extreme as it used to be. Here at the one-year mark after my son’s suicide, I no longer need to insert his story and my grief into every conversation. I no longer obsess over my expectations of others and my inevitable disappointment, like I did several months ago. But I still get upset when relatives come to the house, see the pictures and scrapbooks in full view, hear my passing references to Noah (intended to signal it’s OK to discuss him), and are silent. There is no acknowledgement of how they miss him (which I know they do), no inquiry as to how we are doing after the death anniversary. Once again, it’s as if our son never lived, as if we haven’t been going through hell—as if we should all just be moving on. I am tempted to leave the room but I don’t. After these encounters, I feel disheartened, disoriented. 

Recently, another relative made a hurtful reference to our son. Drawing a comparison to other struggling young people, they said, “At least X didn’t pull a Noah.” What!? Of course, I don’t want other kids to end their lives. But now, our child is reduced to a slang expression for a trick or a caper, a poster child warning of what not to do. Will he only be remembered for his suicide and not for, say, his wacky humor, his love for his grandparents, his amazing juggling skills? Is this the only way his name will be invoked?

From Our House, a grief support center in Los Angeles, comes a Bereaved Parent’s Wish List based on parents' comments from support groups of what mourning parents (not only suicide survivors) wish others would do or say (or not do or say). It reminds me of the wish lists I made in the early months of mourning on how others could help us. Not everything on the Our House list seems urgent to me at this point, and not everything is relevant to parents who lost children to suicide. I’m most struck by #1, 2, 7, and 9 at the moment. I’m including the whole list in case it resonates with my fellow parent survivors. Which of these do you wish you could post on your door or your Facebook page or . . . ? What would you add to or subtract from the list of your experience walking the mourner’s path?

From Our House Grief Center: A Bereaved Parent’s Wish List

1.      I wish my child hadn’t died.  I wish I had him back.

2.      I wish you wouldn’t be afraid to speak my child’s name.  My child lived and was very important to me.  I need to hear that he was important to you also.

3.      If I cry and get emotional when you talk about my child, I wish you knew that it isn’t because you have hurt me.  My child’s death is the cause of my tears.  You have talked about my child, and you have allowed me to share my grief.  I thank you for both.

4.      I wish you wouldn’t “kill” my child again by removing his pictures, artwork or other remembrances from your home.

5.      Being a bereaved parent is not contagious, so I wish you wouldn’t shy away from me.  I need to know you care now more than ever.

6.      I need diversions, so I do want to hear about you; but I also want you to hear about me.  I might be sad and I might cry, but I wish you would let me talk about my child—my favorite topic of the day.

7.      I know that you think of me and pray for me often.  I also know that my child’s death pains you, too.  I wish you would let me know these things through a phone call, a card or a note, or a real big hug. 

8.      I wish you wouldn’t expect my grief to be over in six months.  These first months are traumatic for me, but I wish you could understand that my grief will never be over.  I will suffer the death of my child until the day I die.

9.      I am working very hard in my recovery, but I wish you could understand that I will never fully recover. I will always miss my child and I will always grieve that he is dead.

10.  I wish you wouldn’t expect me “not to think about it,” or to “be happy.”  Neither will happen for a very long time, so don’t frustrate yourself.

11.  I don’t want to have a “pity party,” but I do wish you would let me grieve.  I must hurt before I can heal.

12.  I wish you understood how my life has shattered.  I know it is miserable for you to be around me when I’m feeling miserable.  Please be patient with me as I am with you.

13.  When I say, “I’m doing okay,” I wish you could understand that I don’t  “feel” okay and that I struggle daily.

14.  I wish you knew that all the grief reactions I am having are very normal.  Depression, anger, hopelessness and overwhelming sadness are all to be expected.  So please excuse me when I’m quiet and withdrawn or irritable and cranky.

15.  Your advice to “take one day at a time” is excellent advice.  However, a day is too much and too fast for me right now.  I wish you could understand that I’m doing good to handle an hour at a time.

16.  Please excuse me if I seem rude, certainly not my intent.  Sometimes the world goes around me too fast and I need to get off.  When I walk away, I wish you would let me find a quiet place to spend time alone. 

17.  I wish you could understand that grief changes people.  When my child died, a big part of me died with him.  I am not the same person I was before my child died, and I will never be that person again.

18.  I wish very much that you could understand – understand my loss and my grief, my silence and my tears, my void and my pain.  BUT, I pray daily that you will NEVER understand…

The Urge to Dance

A confession: In the weeks leading up to Noah’s one-year death anniversary, I started to feel the urge to dance. It came bubbling up without warning whenever I heard the catchy R&B theme music of a TV show. I would start wiggling and shaking in my seat, then stop, self-conscious. How could I want to dance when I’d been crying a few hours earlier, when I was dreading the one-year mark? Finally, one day I stood up to dance through the whole song. I felt strange but liberated, like a submerged sea creature thrashing up out of the depths.  

 

“There are no rules,” a friend told me. “You’ve got to ride your grief like a wave and see where it takes you.”

Alone in the house, I started rifling through old CDs and searching for tunes online that I used to like to dance to with the volume cranked up. For me, that means things like Stevie Wonder, Greek music, salsa. As a young person, I spent years folk dancing, including time in a village near the Greek-Albanian border researching folk music traditions. We brought our boys to the festival in that village when they were 10 and 12, and Noah was amazed to see me lead the dance as if I’d actually been young once. Reminded of that a few weeks ago, I put on a rousing Albanian folk song, spun a kerchief in the air as if leading the line, and whirled around the kitchen with whistles that brought the dog trotting in, confused. I danced furiously, tirelessly, over and over, as if emerging from a long confinement. At least until I glimpsed a picture of Noah in the next room.

A time to dance, a time to mourn. I used to think the two were opposites; I would say the Greeks taught me how to dance and how to mourn. But what I really learned from them was the pathos and passion that can intertwine with zest for life and celebration and the sheer need to “break out” into self-expression. I’d see it in the intense concentration of a man’s soulful zembekiko dance, improvised solo around a beer bottle. I’d hear it in the doleful lyrics, This earth that we are dancing on/All of us will enter into it. Women took songs and turned them into laments; death was a natural part of daily life.

Now, when I feel the urge to dance, I try to honor it. It’s not so much about being happy and light-hearted as it is about needing to feel alive and let the body speak. The life force that’s lain dormant bubbles up like a sustaining spring, in spite of, because of such tragic loss. Its arrival gives me hope for the years ahead.

For my fellow mourners who are appalled or alienated at the thought of dancing, I understand. But if you, too, have felt the urge in spite of or along with your loss, you may appreciate this from Molly Fumia’s wise book about grief, Safe Passage: 

I lie in the dark, aware that in the distance, the music of life is playing.  Even in my grieving for you, I am drawn to the sounds and my body begins to stir.

Your voice, next to me in the night, gives me a little nudge.  ‘Go ahead, Dance.’

So I stand up, still clothed in darkness, and hold up my arms.  A long twirl, a low dip.  Silently, I come to life like a marionette who has been touched by magic.

Please don't give me away--not yet.  I'm not ready for anyone else to know I'm dancing in the darkness.