Skip to main content

Baruch Dayan Ha-Emes / ברוך דין האמת

איידל בת רחל

She will be missed.

More thoughts, added later: 

Last Sunday was so peaceful… for the first time, she closed her eyes and just rested while I did her hands/arms and feet.  I nattered less than usual – I must be a very annoying visitor! – and just felt the raw physicality of taking somebody else’s fingers and toes and soothing them with olive oil. 

I have never had that much physical contact with anybody other than my parents, husband and children. 

If there were a way to help with the taharah, I would offer the family, but I think it would sound ghoulish, so I refrain.  Perhaps there will be a time in my life when I do that kind of thing.  I hope so; chessed for the dead might be easier than for the living. 

This thing – this visiting-the-sick thing… it hasn’t been easy.  It has been hard, and I rarely enjoyed it, not even the smug self-satisfied enjoyment I thought I might get – the girl-guide thing.

But occasionally, my nattering made her smile and if not the run-on conversation about my family’s daily comings and goings (like the best classical Freudian, she rarely commented)… I know she enjoyed the foot rubs.

I tried to find readings that would interest her – not just what I felt like reading.  I tried to never forget she was a neshamah, even when the nursing staff insisted on acting as if she were nothing more than a nuisance, a failing body, a problem.

This morning, I was sweeping up dead leaves and noticed two stacked plant pots:  some bulbs I bought super-cheap at an end-of-season sale (daffs?  tulips?) and hyacinths Arlene gave me a few months ago to keep and force indoors.  She entrusted them to me to bring back to life and return them when they flowered.

My own bulbs had rotted away – too wet! - but Arlene’s had thick green shoots poking out the top; despite the damp, they were already beginning to grow again.  I potted them up carefully, tamping down the earth.  I was going to bring them to her today, even though they weren’t flowering yet, so they could come to life on the window ledge of her room.

Instead, I will bring them inside tomorrow, watch them, and think of her some more.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

It's Heart Month: 3 days left to save lives!

Dear Friends & Family: Hi, everybody! Sorry I can’t stop by in person... you're a bit out of my area.  :-) We’re out walking up and down on our street on this beautiful afternoon to raise money for Heart & Stroke.  This cause is important to me (I won't say it's close to my heart , because that would be tacky!).  I hope you'll join me by donating online. Growing up, I watched as every single one of my grandparents' lives were shortened by heart disease and strokes, and my father had a defibrillator that saved his life on more than one occasion.  Heart disease and stroke kill 1 in 3 Canadians and are the #1 killer of women. Please click this link to be redirected to my main page at the Heart & Stroke website: http://tinyurl.com/AtlasHeart Thus ends my personal appeal.  Official information follows.  :-))) ----- Heart disease and stroke is the #1 killer of women - taking more women's lives than all forms of cancer combined. But no one is immune. Th