Yizkor

I first encountered death of a family member when I was 18. My brother Yehuda had been killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. After that, my parents were subsumed with grief and went AWOL as it were, mentally and physically. They went to Israel to visit Yehuda's kibbutz several times after that, and would stay away for around 6 weeks at a time. 

It was during one of these absences that I first found myself without my family over a Yom Tov. 

I was spending Yom tovim and Shabbosim in the home of Rabbi ID Groner during the times that my parents were away, so over the years I would have spent every Yom tov there. I was a part of the 'family'. And although I'm not really a shul-goer, I did go to shul, and Yeshivah was my shul. 

So came the inevitable time of Yizkor. All I knew of yizkor was the Gabai's THUMP on the Bima, and the announcement 'Kinder arroys!' And of course when I was a Kindt, untouched by bereavement, that's what I did. I went out with all the other kids. Who knew what went on in the shul for those 15 or so minutes that we kids all milled around and chit-chatted outside? Old ladies stayed in and we went out. 

But at 18 at that time in the davenning, suddenly I didn't know what to do. Do I stay? Do I go? Is it only about parents or also siblings? For whom does one 'stay in' for yizkor? Never thought about it. The Tehillas Hashem siddur says only parents. But everyone else says siblings too. What is it about, if not remembrance, obviously, and why would one not memorialize a brother? So I stayed. I didn't say anything but I stayed. 

I saw old ladies (of course I am now older than many of those old ladies) weeping quietly and swaying with their faces hidden in their machzors. I heard murmuring of silent prayer. I heard the Kel Melai Rachamim, maybe for the first time, and then it was over. 

Afterwards, at lunch, R Groner told me that I shouldn't stay in because my parents were alive. Oh. Whoops. But I don't remember if I gave it much thought because when you are 18, even a traumatized 18, life beckons; well, it did me anyway. 

My mother was also not a big shul-goer, and had been raised in a traditional but pretty secular family. But she always made a point of going to Yizkor (Yisskeh, my Aussie mum pronounced it, as she mispronounced so many Jewish terms - 'Mejeshem' instead of 'Im Yirtzeh Hashem', Moydi Ani, Kenorah, a sort of pastiche of Tzvosser Yiddish and Australian vowels). She had bad knees and hips and walked with a cane from her mid 50's but she would go for Yizkor come rain or shine, to Yeshivah until she could no longer make the distance, and then to Adass which was much closer to home. She had lost her parents while in her 20's. 

She passed away when I was in my 20s and her 31st yohrzeit falls on 10 Sivan. Her last Shavuos was terrible, awful, and has cast a cloud over Shavuos for me ever since (and then my other brother died 2 Sivan, so.) which I try to dispel by making a Kiddush in her name. 

And I always go to Yizkor. Rain or shine. Just as she did. 

It's not as if I don't think about my parents every day. Your loved ones are never forgotten. 

It's not as if I don't dedicate Tzedaka to their names anyway, or at least I think I would, even without the prompt that the Yizkor prayer gives me. 

Those few minutes of time with others who have lost parents- and sooner or later, in the natural order of things, that means everyone- give me a few minutes to remember and to really focus on them, and also to realize how we are all temporal and temporary beings, yet we are also part of an endless chain. 

I still don't know what to do during Yizkor. The prayer that my parents - and, less officially, my brothers- are in Gan Eden and the pledge to give Tzedoka in their names take only a few minutes. Then the Av HaRachamim and then the chazan's Kel Melei Rachamim- it all takes about 3 minutes. What am I supposed to do the rest of the time?

Remember. 

That's all, I guess. 

Remember. 

Sometimes with my face shielded by my machzor as I weep silently. Like the other old ladies.