Wilding Grief
How we wrap grief and find comfort in these unpredictable times of loss.
Grief is spreading, as uncontrollable and unpredictable as the LA wildfires. With strong catastrophic winds wreaking devastation indiscriminately Grief is the new wilding.
All I can think of is that Olga is still dead. Almost like I am waiting for her to come back to life, stroll with me down my neighborhood Jerusalem street for an early morning coffee.
There are articles/opinions/facts what caused the fires — who do we blame? It doesn’t matter when your loved one dies. It’s too late for them. Too late for you — wilding grief now.
Lost - homes, fields, businesses, at least 24 lives, many still missing.
Lost - Olga Meshoe-Washington, my friend, a mother of two boys, a beloved wife to Joshua Washington, a Lion for Zion, South African social human rights activist, and so much more.
Lost - 5 more Israeli Soldiers in Gaza, 10 wounded.
And as I write this there is a ceasefire deal and so much is lost with that….
I feel like I am suffocating, like the flames, and horizon of burning orange, the smell of burning, this long year of war, of so much suffering.
How do we hold the grief?
I am advised, by a very dear, wise (patient) friend to wrap the grief.
How do you wrap soul numbing grief?
Yesterday I travelled from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv by train and learned how Israelis wrap their grief. The Yitzchak Navon train station is like entering a well lit netherworld. After passing through security and racing down the steep escalators, at the bottom there was a coffee station and a piano where a soldier sat playing, a passionate, fast finger playing, as if no one or nothing else existed in that moment. The song wrapped so much, which made me wonder, how many funerals has he had to attend this past year? Does he have family and friends in Los Angeles who he’s worried about, like I do? Does he also feel alienated as a Jew? Vilified as an Israeli soldier protecting his people?
I boarded the 7:39 am train on platform 2, and was met with men wrapped in black leather straps of tefillin, phylacteries and white prayer shawls, praying. All types of men; the expected ultra orthodox black suits, soldiers, men in jeans and trendy sneakers, some who put a kippa on just for prayers. There was a minyan, quorum of men who prayed the mourners kaddish, which we all answered, Amen. The women also prayed. One a young soldier with a prayerbook the size of her palm. She prayed in the aisle her slim figure swinging the silent, standing prayer
.
There arose through the carriage the song of priests standing, their arms raised under their prayer shawls, chanting the Biblical blessing,
The LORD bless you and protect you! The LORD deal kindly and graciously with you! The LORD bestow His favor upon you and grant you peace! (Numbers 6:24-26)
A declaration as God says, Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them. (Numbers 6:27)
The prayers are ancient on this fast moving train passing olive groves, wintering vineyards, sleeping wheat and corn fields, forests of cedar and pine trees wrapped in soft, early morning light, and my mind travels to the exhibit at the Israel museum which hosts the oldest writing of Paleo-Hebrew. They are called Ketef Hinnom, 6th Century BCE, silver amulets inscribed with the priestly blessing.
How many hands have lifted to bless the people of Israel with these words?
Holy, Holy, Holy sounds the repetition of the silent prayer. How we repeat the words of angels. How they call to one another,
“Holy, holy, holy!
GOD of Hosts—
Whose presence fills all the earth!” (Isaiah 6:3)
This is the way Israel wraps their grief. Through song and prayer.
And I felt held
.When I disembarked at Tel Aviv Savidor Center I passed another piano, and it was playing music. More holding. I didn’t stop to see who was playing, but when I returned to Jerusalem the piano in the hallway before the endless escalators up into Jaffa street, there was another soldier playing. This time with no train to catch, I stopped to listen and take a photo.
A photo of a soldier who is in war and yet still believes in song.
Bear witness to his song.
Bearing witness to grief is something I’ve learned to do this year.
Everyone grieves differently.
And of course there are degrees of grief. First hand grief of losing a beloved child, a nephew, my nephew. Second hand grief seeing the fires in LA, the loss of life, how the numbers are going up. Bearing witness to the grief of war. A ceasefire deal has been announced, and we are swapping live terrorists for dead bodies. Such a grief to think of the condition of the hostages. Such a joy to have them free at the same time. All I can think of is Karina, the 20-year-old girl whose name is on the list, and who Geula, an old woman (with a very young heart) on the streets of Jerusalem has held vigil and hope for, around her poster on the corner of Emek Refaim and General Pierre Koenig street all these 468 days. It makes me smile to think Geula will soon be having coffee with Karina safe at home with her mother and family, like she has dreamed and prayed about.
Grief is such a mixture of emotions. Grief is born from deep love, and there is so much to love in this world. So much to lose.
This is why it’s important to wrap grief. Our own and others.
One of the ways to wrap grief we learned in Israel in this war besides prayer and song is through good deeds. Being there for one another. Offering babysitting, meals, tea, clothes, friendship, support. The more practical the better. I am seeing this comfort spread in LA. A friend said on a group chat a few days ago, “I am ok. Trying to help people wherever I can because then I don’t feel totally helpless.”
Another way of wrapping our helpless grief.
I don’t know how to solve the grief of this world. The hate and futility of war where no-one wins as Shai Davidoff posted on Instagram today.
The indiscriminate tragedy of wildfires that lick up lives and homes leaving ash to dab on our foreheads and hearts.
I do know we need to bear witness to tragedy and grief. I know we need to hold this wilding grief. I also know it’s easy to get swallowed by wild grief. Grief dances with joy, I remind myself, as I look at the beautiful sky - simple clouds aligned, alight by rays of early sun, on my way to the coffee shop. I don’t know the way of this world. I do not know which way of our future paths will go. But, I do know the way to my coffee shop, and there is something reassuring and blessed in that. I go with Olga next to me, accompanying me, because we both believed that we are more soul than physical beings. So her soul is still here, even closer now. And I drink my coffee for both of us, deeply appreciating the bittersweet.
***
As I edit this post I have to tell you there is a sweet, hesitant music in my home. It is my son home for the weekend from the army, he does not know how to play piano, but somehow he is at the piano wrapping himself in the notes. All he cannot say.
With blessings,
Sarah
Notes:
Read award winning journalist, Tabby Refael’s beautiful Jewish Journal tribute to Olga Meshoe-Washington here.
For more about me and my writing visit my website www.sarahsassoon.comTo support my work please consider buying my children’s books, the award winning Shoham’s Bangle, and my latest This is Not a Cholent. My mission is to spread and educate about Jewish Middle Eastern culture.
Read my free online, award winning poetry collection, published by Harbor Review - This is Why We Don’t Look Back.
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