Every year, I do a Facebook post on my mother’s yahrzeit. This past week, the week before the anniversary of her death, I was too preoccupied for Facebook (if only I were so inclined when I had work to do!) because of my son’s Bar Mitzvah this past weekend.
But now, after the fact, after the guests have left and the house cleaned (well, not quite, but getting there), I feel inclined to write. This past weekend, something unusual and beautiful happened. We celebrated my son’s Bar Mitzvah on my mother’s yahrzeit. Allow me to explain.
The Hebrew calendar is different than the secular one. Each year, on the Hebrew date of my mother’s death, we light a special memorial candle to mark her yahrzeit, or the anniversary of her passing – the Hebrew date is the 6th of Shvat. 20 years after my mother died, my son was born – on the 5th of Shvat.
When discussing my son’s birth, I have often remarked – as we learned from Esther being in a position of power to save the Jews during the time of Purim – that G-d brings the healing before the plague. Each year, before I mark the day that I lost my mother as a child, I am comforted by my son’s birthday, the child who made me a mother. That joy brings me comfort each and every day, not only on the day that I mark her passing.
I often think about my kids’ ages as they grow older, and how I am present in their lives long after my mother was present in mine. I was 8 years old when she died, the same age as my youngest daughter now. I mull over the fact that I have no frame of reference for being a mom in this stage of my child’s life, and so I am navigating in this foreign land without a guidebook and muddling through as best I can.
When we realized the weekend of my son’s Bar Mitzvah would coincide with this special and private day this year, I knew an intimate celebration was how I wanted to mark the occasion. The anniversary of my mother’s death always brings a roller coaster of emotions, and this one was no exception.
My father and step-mother were present, as well as three of my siblings and my uncle, my mother’s brother. Because we were all together for my mother’s yahrzeit, my uncle and two brothers said the mourner’s Kaddish for my mother together during prayer services.
Having us all in one room, and standing next to my sister as my son was called up to the Torah at our home – I felt my mother’s presence right there next to me, just like I felt it at my niece’s weddings as they were walking down the aisle or at my children’s births. I know she is there in spirit, and I imagine so frustrated that she can’t be there in person to give us all hugs and tell my son how proud she is of him.
The words bittersweet symphony came to mind as the day progressed – a sweet wonderful celebration of life, tinged with the sadness that my mother isn’t here to appreciate it. Life happens. People get sick and people die. Those of us left behind are left to pick up the pieces, however ill-equipped we may be. I’m sure one day in therapy, my son and his siblings will talk about their mother, who never really dealt with the trauma of losing her mother, and cried almost every time she mentioned her or felt like she wasn’t living up to the mother she had. As a good friend of mine once said about our kids, “They’ll all end up in therapy. We’re just giving them something to talk about.”
My mother’s yahrzeit will always be a difficult day for me, but now it will also be one on which I remember the sweetness of this beautiful celebration of life, marking the passage of my son’s journey to manhood, growing older, more independent, and wiser each day.