It's so weird to lose someone you feel like you've already lost...though when my mother called me at 6:20 AM on Monday morning to tell me my grandmother passed, it was a surprise. It was a surprise and not a surprise, whoch is the weirdest thing...last I spoke to her, she was in too much pain to have a conversation and I hung up, promising I'd speak to her again soon.
That leads us to Monday morning and...yeah. But these last few month, she hadn't been the way I'd remember her...she was fragile and small and not at all the woman whose house I'd visit as a child or the woman who'd come to Israel only a few month before. She kept saying, "This isn't your grandmother." and as far as I was concerned, she knew what she was talking about...she didn't want to stay the way she was, she'd rather be gone...which we never liked hearing from her, but there it is.
If I had any doubt in my mind about the importance of the Jewish community, this experience has redoubled my belief in its importance. Whether it's congregants who don't really know us turning up for a shiva minyan or the Rabbi spending two hours with us, explaining the funeral procedure or the Sisterhood sending us a complete dinner, it's been really important through all of this.
We went to her place yesterday, but it was aplace she'd barely lived three weeks in and it didn't seem like it was hers. We took some of her things, and that was hard..but she's rather us have it instead of giving or throwing it away.
I will miss her.
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