This was an interesting chapter to illustrate. I found myself going through old photos, trying to find something that might provide a useful visual to give you an idea of what my life was like in the years immediately after Dad died, when I slipped deeper into denial about what had happened and how I really felt about it. Turns out it’s not that easy to illustrate a person slipping into denial.
Chapter Fifteen
One of Dad’s favorite Hebrew songs, Dayenu, comes from the Passover liturgy. Passover is the holiday that commemorates the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt, led by Moses, who was guided by God. The word Dayenu roughly translates to “It would have been enough.”
The English translation of the first verse is “Had God just led us out of Egypt, it would have been enough.” The second verse is, “Had God just given us the Torah, it would have been enough,” and on and on for about 700 verses, until we’re all so overwhelmed with gratitude we feel guilty complaining about anything at all.
In the years immediately after Dad’s death, if I started getting weepy or mournful, Mom’s standard response was, “Remember what your father used to say: when I die, I want you to cry for an hour and then get back to the business of living.” On the increasingly rare occasions when, still struggling to understand what had happened, I tried to engage her in reflective thinking about why he’d gone to the lake, her inevitable response was, “He’s dead. Talking about it is not going to bring him back.”
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