In memory of Liz Brous Guevara and Andrea L. Weiss
I’m tired of burying my friends.
I show up at funerals,
mouth by memory the chants colleagues invoke,
guess what psalm comes next,
and say Kaddish without the card in my hand.
I do show up at funerals a lot,
though standing up front wearing a black suit
with a small looseleaf notebook in hand
which is different.
I’m a rabbi, a professional,
so I know what to do, right?
I go to the cemetery
and add shovels-full of earth at graves
all the time.
At those graves
I say Kaddish, chant for compassion,
offer psalms and poems that seem right,
and bring a whole heart.
But, at these other graves,
the graves of my friends,
I am not a professional
standing before gaping holes
no one was prepared to dig.
At these graves I am a friend,
a friend with 50 or 40 years of friendship,
really good friendship that defies these basic words
with women who rocked the world
and were mighty as oaks
in lithe, tiny bodies
yet felled by illness
in what seems like a single blow of sudden sickness.
At these graves
I come to bury
women I grew up with,
as a child and adult,
women whose birth year I shared:
the woman who I played Fisher Price figures
and Madame Alexander dolls with,
my partner making puppet shows behind a fridge-box stage,
messing up Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookies in the toaster,
and dreaming of an illustrated children’s book
whose pages show our grandmas, Harriet and Ruth,
and a long phone cord across NYC,
the bride I helped marry
and visited with her newborn,
lying to hospital security after hours –
“I’m her rabbi” –
looking nothing like one in shorts and t-shirt,
and making her laugh
and the woman I met at camp in the California desert
watering trees and leading prayer
with idealism and open souls,
and grew alongside with talks of dreams and dresses
that fit our changing roles,
the parental and professional,
who taught with blessing for my wedding,
folded laundry when twins stretched my abdomen,
and told me, “You’ll know what to do!”
as I struggled to make divorce ritual for myself,
the houseguest who who came to visit, gifted friends,
cited sermon text,
and sent me to the perfect Jerusalem hotel last summer.
Before I stand at these graves
I am a friend who tries so damn hard
to cheer on two different women
as they stare stage 4 or whatever number down
with fierce love of growing children
they want to watch for years to come.
I try to show my love,
call, text, ring the doorbell,
get on planes and bake brownies,
send mail, beautiful scarves, and trashy novels,
a friend nourished by the wisdom and writing
of the beauty editor-writer and bible professor-rabbi.
I am a friend who may be professional
instructing others how to show up
aware that there is no one or perfect way
to be there for illness and death
and that mine may be wrong,
but who wants others to try,
not avoid or rush through discomfort and fear.
I am a friend who shows up
knowing all of this and more,
burying women I love,
feeling far from professional,
and knowing even less than I thought I did.
I am a friend who grieves.