Beginning My Chevrah Kadisha Journey

My mother died in May, 1990. The impact of her death was suffocating; I didn’t know how to move through her death, through my mourning, or towards the next chapter. 

My mother’s life was a challenge; she suffered with each and every breath in the 24 years that I was challenged to know her. Somehow in her last months, I was able to find a place for our relationship to exist with a semblance of a connection. While my mother’s illness rendered her incapable of parenting in a healthy way, she was still the woman who birthed me. I wanted and was blessed to find a brief moment of a relationship during her lifetime; it was something I yearned for and received. Simply put, whether living or not, my mother has impacted every day of my life.

Mourning for me began 6 months earlier when I was sitting in her hospital room addressing invitations to my upcoming wedding. As I was focused on my penmanship, my mother’s doctor called my brother and me into the hospital corridor to let us know that she wouldn’t be around for more than 6 months. True to his word, Mom died 5 months after my wedding.

When my father called me to let me know that ‘it was all over’, I howled like a baby. I was instantly lost and devastated. With my mother’s death came the reality that there was no chance of ever having ‘a healthy mother’; that chapter of my life was slammed shut. There would be no second chances, no tomorrows.

With my mother’s life over, it came time to plan her funeral. At first, my father told me that we could do everything as I wanted it to be done. So we went to the Jewish Funeral Home in my hometown and I asked that the funeral be as traditional as possible. I was always connected with Judaism even if I had no idea what went into the actual funeral, but I knew I wanted to follow Jewish law. 

All the pieces of my mother’s funeral were coming together until my aunt walked into the funeral home and said that “Marilyn needed to be buried in her favorite robe with her hair and nails done for the occasion.” My aunt also suggested that we bury her television remote with her. Sigh. My father didn’t want to argue with my mother’s sister.  So that is the way my mom’s funeral went – exactly as her sister requested. 

From the moment, that my mother’s funeral plans changed, I knew that I needed to do something with my disdain for the process. I needed an outlet. Initially, I moved through the traditional periods of mourning in the best way I knew how. We had the funeral, I sat shiva*and went to shul* nearly every day to say the kaddish, memorial prayer. I also took on reading everything I could about death and dying, Jewish rituals on death and dying, and anything that would accelerate my healing journey.

Ultimately, I decided that while I couldn’t do anything to help my mother’s funeral process, I could join those who were already taking care of people who were dying or had passed.

Fortunately, I lived in a fabulous community that had a strong Chevrah Kadisha. The women in the group taught me how to do a taharah, prepare a body before their burial. From the first taharah until the ones I do still to this day, I am grateful for my ability to care for the body of someone before they go to their final resting place.  Nearly each and every time, I feel  a warm sense of ‘rightness’ that I can make a difference for good. 

Today, I sometimes sit with people as they are taking their last breath. I also help people who are in mourning in any way that I can. As part of the any Chevrah Kadisha, I do whatever I can to make the dying process, death, and mourning process a little easier for all involved.

Perhaps I wasn’t able to affect my mother’s funeral process, but I can make a difference now.  

Glossary

Shiva – mourning week following a Jewish burial,

Shul – synagogue

Chevrah Kadisha – Burial Society

Taharah – ritual preparation for burial
 

As a mother of two sons, a Jewish educator, a writer and a friend, Chava Gal-Or thrives on the connections she makes with all living creatures, as well as through her weaving of words.  Her workshops and writing both focus on embracing a life filled with conscious living, sustainability, simplicity, and on a sacred space within Judaism.  

Chava loves both children and adults and has been a Jewish Educator for nearly 30 years; she is currently living in Tucson, but heading back to the East Coast in the near future. 

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