Rituals of death and mourning are life-affirming

When someone dies in the Jewish faith, the immediate family spends one week sitting shiva…. When someone dies in the Jewish faith, the immediate family spends one week sitting shiva. Shiva involves not leaving the house while friends and family come over to cook, clean, and assist in assorted household tasks. Every night during the period of mourning, more friends and family show up at the house to pay their respects and take part in a brief religious service known as a minyan.

Sitting shiva is almost never a festive event. There’s usually a general air of solemnity about the whole thing, as well there should be. Many people who pay shiva calls and aren’t especially close with the family of the deceased only show up to pay their respects because there exists a feeling of obligation, be it personal or professional.

Much like attending a funeral, it isn’t the kind of thing anyone really looks forward to, simply because it can be such a depressing experience. However, having both sat shiva and attended it at the homes of others in the last few months, I’ve found that death is only as depressing as you want it to be. I realized this because every time I attend one of these gatherings, I always leave feeling better about myself and about life than I did when I arrived.

A few weeks ago, a close family friend, a man I’ve known my entire life, lost his mother. I went to his house to attend shiva. After the service, when most of the guests had left, I was hanging around the kitchen while my mom and some other friends were packing up the leftover food. My friend and I sat at the table discussing draft strategies for the New York Jets.

An old rule in Judaism stipulates that a visitor in a house of mourning should never take anything with them when they leave, but when I left the house that evening, my friend had bestowed upon me an entire chocolate cake, a cherry pie, a bag of pastries and a bottle of vodka.

“We have all these leftovers,” his wife said. “You’ve got to take some of this stuff!”

Oddly enough, that seems to be the norm. Everyone seems to leave what should be sad events feeling good about a conversation they just had with a friend or relative, or, at the very least, well fed.

Death itself is sad. The idea of someone close to you not being around anymore can be extremely upsetting, and it usually is. But death is very much a part of life that needs to be embraced as much as your high school graduation, your wedding, and that time your brother covered his bedroom walls in peanut butter. Why? Because everyone deals with death, and it’s more productive to celebrate a life than to simply mourn a death. Death is a part of life.

Last November, my grandfather passed away on the day I turned 21. From one standpoint, I could very easily have dismissed it as being the worst birthday I’d ever had. In fact, it was without question the worst; I just choose not to think of it like that.

My grandfather was a truly wonderful man who redefined living life to its fullest. He didn’t embark on extravagant journeys; he didn’t attempt outlandish stunts; he didn’t even do anything spontaneous. A terrible misconception exists that living life to its fullest involves never sitting still. He just played golf, ate and told jokes. That was his life — and he loved every minute of it.

He struggled with various health problems his entire life, having been born blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. He suffered from hypertension and emphysema; he survived three angioplasties, quadruple-bypass surgery and a stroke. Through all of it, he never stopped playing golf, enjoying food or laughing at the outlandish things he said. The man seemed to enjoy all but his last six weeks, when the cancer really got to him.

Losing him was terrible, and the fact that it happened on my birthday initially made it just a little more difficult. But between his death and the funeral, I decided that the conclusion was inevitable, but the timing may well have been a gift; I’ll forever associate my birthday with my grandfather.

I mourned his passing and I still miss him very much, but I didn’t allow myself to be too upset for very long. Death is a part of life. To stay upset over it would not only have impeded my progress, it would have been selfish and contradictory to the very way my grandfather carried himself from day to day.

Every year, rather than a painful reminder of the suffering he endured, can serve as an opportunity for me to put my life into perspective, remember him, and attempt to recapture some of his attitude and his outlook, that I might be a better person for it.

This one’s for you, Mayshe. Matt Wein can be reached at mattwein@hotmail.com.