One reader has noted that I've noted on more than one occasion a friend's comment that no days are actually longer or shorter than others. I wonder how many other things I tend to repeat regularly, whether in broad day life of in my six and a half years of living on a blog. On thing I feel that I've mentioned more than once is that I really don't understand blogging. All I can say at this moment - after having paused and thought about how to continue - is that I'm a writer.

Yesterday was the unveiling for my mother - OBM, or should I say for my mother's matzeivah - tombstone. I officiated, whatever that means. (People like having and need someone or something lend structure to time as they pass through it. Did you ever notice how often at a convention or any event that hands out a schedule people look at the schedule, how they/we come to rely on the order provided to us externally. It's almost like we wish someone would schedule all of our lives for us;it would make things easier. I know some people who are good at making and keeping to schedules of their personal time. They do very well with it - both of them. Most of us look outside for a framework in which to solidify our inner jello. I could be wrong, but I think I may have digressed - parentheses to the rescue).

After returning home I took a few hours of much needed chilled space in the wake of a spate of restlessness. Then I went to my school's play. The students, many of whom I know well, did a great job. At the collation I was approached (cornered?) by a lovely older woman whom I officiated for as rabbi over Passover for many years. After a week plus of running minyan, delivering speeches and classes, running the sedarim, and teaching myriad classes (along with giving out towels and newspapers and fielding food issues) I would host the talent show on the last night. I stopped going two years ago when my mother passed away. In hosting the talent show I'd do my bits in between the acts I introduced. One of the routines that resonated for the crowd was about my mother and how she always wanted to know what was going on with me socially ("Are there any Jewish mothers in the audience?" I'd ask - to lots of knowing laughs during this piece). This woman asked me if my mother is still bothering me about my social situation. Sigh. She clearly didn't know my mother passed away almost a year and a half ago. Of course she couldn't have been aware of where I had been at ten in the morning. I had a millisecond to decide how to answer the question. I used all my inner strength to NOT NOT NOT say, "My mother passed away." I didn't have it in me to smile and say, "Yeah, mom's just the same." Maybe, maybe, on a different day, an unveiling-less day. I hesitated silently and kind of wriggled, displaying discomfort but not saying what I was uncomfortable about. She sensed my discomfort and said, "You don't have to answer."

My family was pleased with what I said and how I structured the get together/ceremony. I cleared doing it even thought it was within 30 days of Shavuot. The psak I got was that pre Rosh Chodesh was OK. A rabbinic advisor/posek suggested that after I speak I ask if anyone wants to share any thoughts. I tweaked that by saying before I spoke that people could start thinking and didn't have to say anything aloud but could just take a moment to remember a fond memory to themselves. My opening words were to explain the two abbreviations on the tombstone. The first pay-nun stands for poh nikveret - here is buried. The second is an acronym for tehei nishmatah tzrurah bitror hachayim. My take on that was that thought it's usually translated as "may her soul be bound with the bond of eternal life," it could mean something else." Bitzror hachayim can mean the bond with the living, the idea that she is still connected to the living, through the legacy she left behind. Then we did Tehillim - spelling mom's Jewish name, Fraydah. I promised people that that part would be under fie minutes as I'd done a practice run (some people there were not familiar with the Hebrew and I wanted to assure them that the part most cryptic to them wouldn't be overly long. I then mentioned a poem that I handed out with the Tehillim sheets. I said people could read on their own this original poem that was given to mom by her elementary school teacher and which she cherished forever. Dad said to read it out loud so I did. I went through some of mom's traits that I will always hold. I spoke about her protectiveness and the story she told me about her father. Grandpa told mom at a certain age that she could walk to the elementary school bus stop alone. Eventually she caught on to the fact that he followed from a block behind. More than a sign of mistrust or worry this was a symbol; of my grandfather's love for his daughter. I always think of this in connection to "Shiviti Hashem lenegdi tamid." More than it being scary that G-d is always with us it is comforting that He is always with us, protecting us. So too with parents -even from heaven. I mentioned that part of the purpose of a gathering like this is to reflect and to pay respect to the nifteret (whatever reason for it you go with the tombstone has to do with respect for the one who passed away) in a calmer moment than at the shocking time of burial. I recalled feeling inarticulate at the levayah, but being pleased with one line I said then that felt spot on:

"Mom saw with a thousand eyes and heard with a thousand ears and felt with a thousand hearts." After, we all lingered, prayed, spoke. A young relative came up and told me that he was reminded of the idea of how G-d watches us (we're told in Song of Songs) through windows and lattices. Through a window you can see that you being watched but through the lattices of cracks you are watched even though it is not readily apparent. I was taken by this thought by this fine young man from a yeshivish home who seems so well raised. I give credit to his parents for helping him be the mentsch he is. I have to cut myself off and go to sleep. I have more. My childhood friend remembered mom's playfulness. Dad spoke last minute in a cogent way from a very deep place. And he said something even more beautiful to me afterwards. Aunt Leah spoke about the closeness of my mom and her husband, mom's brother, who passed away exactly a year before mom did. A milestone has passed. There is a time for everything. Good night and G-d bless.

There's no weightlessness

in this turbulent lifetime

as we wait for peace