Beginnings and Endings

In general, I hope this blog will be a place to share happy news and the joyful adventures and ponderings of a growing family, but as we all know, sadness is part of life, too. I lost my father this past weekend, and that was also part of what prompted me to start blogging - as I've been relaying stories about him to friends of mine, I was thinking of how nice it would be if I could share his memory with the whole world, and let everyone know who he was and how I felt about him. So, I will.

Dad's Newspaper Obituary

Tribute from the Hockey Club Board

I learned so much about my Dad's heritage from observing the profound traditions and customs of mourning in the Jewish faith. I am wearing, for the next month, a keriah ribbon, and we lit a yahrzeit candle next to his picture. To a Catholic like myself who is used to tossing a rose into a grave as a final farewell gesture, it seemed strange to me, after doing that, to pick up a shovel and also lift some dirt from a pile onto my father's coffin. But the Rabbi who officiated at the burial explained to us that this is, in fact, considered the greatest mitzvah (good deed, act of love) that one person can do for another, because the person whom you are returning to God cannot thank you for it. He also said that performing the mitzvah of delivering the eulogy is a very important one in Jewish tradition, and I was so honored to be able to do that as a final gift to my Dad.

So, the next post will be the text of the eulogy I wrote for my Dad and delivered at his funeral on Tuesday; for those who knew him, I hope it makes you remember him with fondness, and for those who never met him, I hope it makes you feel as if you had.

Please, please continue to pray for him.