TheBanyanTree: 100 years, seven months

[Pam James]

I am so very, very sorry for your loss Tobie.....

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 5:12 PM <tobie at shpilchas.net> wrote:

> This is Tobie from "Sheltering In Place" (S.I.P.).  I’ve been thinking of
> you.  Shabbat Shalom.
>
>         The shiva candle is quietly burning in the window.  We buried my
> mother on Thursday.  Six feet apart, close family far apart.  Kaddish
> through a mask.  Probably no one heard me choke up and skip a v’yit. Well,
> Meyshe did.  It threw him off for a second. He was standing right next to
> me. Our little pod can touch.  My best friend came. I haven’t seen her for
> close to a year now. My daughter and her husband came from San Francisco.
> As half faces we acknowledged each other. She’s dyed her hair auburn (it
> was dark blond).  People said it was hard to recognize everyone with all
> the face coverings.  Someone said, "But we can always tell who YOU are."
>  I asked why and they all laughed.  Evidently I’m always the most colorful
> person present.  I’ve forgotten who I am maybe.
>
>         Can’t go into my mother’s room.  But I did once. I opened one of
> her jewelry cases and took out the amethyst ring she wanted me to have and
> the victorian era ring I gave her: a band with a small pearl and around the
> ring tightly braided hair. It was a popular gift between friends and lovers
> back way back back.  I put them on, wore them to the cemetery.  But I took
> them off when we got home.  Didn’t know where to put them.
>
>         They’d had to pile up the dirt on top of the Lieberman's place
> next door. We apologized. And they had to move the Shapiro  headstone,
> promising everything would be put back where it belonged.
>
>                 So I guess everything is put back where it belongs.
>
>         We need to notify everyone about my mother’s passing. I saved a
> list of people who were invited to the 100th birthday open house that never
> took place  because the pandemic fell down on top of us.  We thought we
> could call people. But when I opened up the file, it was only addresses, no
> telephone numbers, no email. So we thought we’d send cards — nice ones.  I
> was charged with searching on the net for a thoughtful not maudlin card.
> Came up empty. You want a picture of Monet’s garden? My mother liked
> Gauguin, but topless native women with fruit?  Then it came to me that the
> walls in this house are covered with her paintings. I know her favorites
> and I’ll photograph them, have cards made.
>
>         Meyshe comes into my room at night and sleeps on the other side of
> the huge bed. He asked me, "Isn’t this going to look wrong?"  I told him no
> one was looking, but he could sleep on top of the comforter and I’d sleep
> under. I think each one of us wants to think the other needs more support.
> True. We both need more support.
>
>         I had to tell my literary agents back east that I couldn’t send
> them anything to submit right now. They understood. Of course they did.
> Everyone has parents.  Or had parents.  This is nothing like my father’s
> death.  He was a monster and all I felt when he died was a sense of relief
> and a new feeling I didn’t even recognize: I felt safe.  With my mother’s
> passing I feel uprooted, laid aside on the ground next to where I was
> growing only a moment ago.   I was the last person on earth she spoke to
> and I accompanied her to the edge of her passing. I feel privileged, and
> haunted.
>
> Love,
>
> Tobie
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> "It's a shame chaos requires such little maintenance" THS
>
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>
> Tobie Shapiro
> mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>
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