What's the Word?

The passenger’s seat of my dad’s car has to be the place where I learn about life the most. I’ll say it for the millionth time, I love car rides with my dad. I think my dad and I often have the same outlook on life. I think he’s the only person that understands me fully sometimes. I wish it were easier for me to talk to him, and not have to just agree with what he says and try to respond in broken russian. On our way to Queens, my dad vented to me as per always, his struggles with his store and making money. My dad has finally decided to go and find a steadier job. And like I said before, I’m really proud of him and so heart-broken at the same time. He was telling me how he’s constantly going to work, but has nothing to show for it. He wishes he could support the family and help my mom out a bit. He hates how he works so hard, has a beautiful store, but makes no money and there are people who barely do anything ” and money just rains down on them”. He also thinks that my mom should stop spending her money on little things for the house like random furniture and gadgets, and save it up to go on vacation. I couldn’t agree more. He was saying that it relatively isn’t that expensive to just go away and spend some time with the family if she just stopped spending her money on things like that. 

What I love about my dad is that all he wants from life is happiness and a close family. He wants me to just do whatever makes me happy. He wants me to have fun more. My dad is very “street smart”, and most of the amazing conversations we have in his car are about not making the same mistakes he made and just to live life to it’s fullest. Like all immigrant parents, he wants me to realize my full potential because that’s what we moved to america for. He’s been asking me every day what present I want for my birthday, and wont let me say I dont want anything. He wants to give as much as he can, just for our own well-being. He believes that happiness is worth more than money, and that if you’re going to spend money, have it be on things that will have more of an emotional impact. 

We were on our way to the Ohel Chabad-Lubavitch Center, a place where many Jews go to ask for help from a rabbi considered to be a messiah. The center is at his burial site, and you write your requests (such as good blessings to help a sick member of the family, help with your own personal goals, and just generally send good blessings) on a piece of paper. You walk into an enclosed area, light a candle, and walk into the burial sight. There you pray and ask for all that you want help with, rip your letter and throw it into the pile of countless other letters written. 

My mom told me about this book she finished reading the other day about people’s needs to mark certain places as “holy” or sacred. How we used to mark these spots with churches and places of worship, and that now people mark these places with “World’s Biggest ___”. The book also mentions this place I went to years back when my family still went on vacations called House on the Rock. It’s this majestic fun-house attraction, that really cannot be described. You have to see and feel and hear it for yourself. 

There’s something about the ink on that piece of paper I wrote on this morning that felt like maybe in some small way its bit of energy will circulate through and reach the skies and then come rain down back to earth. And as I walked in, holding my letters and my stone and penny, I couldn’t focus on the asking I was supposed to do. I couldn’t stand there and pray for my family. Maybe it was the bright sun out today, or the whispers of the other people standing and praying, or maybe it was that huge pile in front of me. I couldn’t stop staring at those piles of little ripped up letters. Some of those belong to my family, and some to people from around the world. All asking for a little bit of help. I can’t say that I’m a religious person, but I also can’t say that I’m not. There’s part of me that really wants to believe that all these little rituals I performed today will end up circulating through the universe. I’ve been needing some kind of support and “good luck” for a very long time now. I think everyone wants to feel like they have someone watching over their shoulders, offering their support when you can’t yourself. 

I also wish I didn’t feel so out of place in such religious and sacred places. I love Judaism for the tradition. All the little rites performed today. I do feel that the majority of the “rules” of orthodox judaism are unnecessary, but some things I feel have their place. I wish I knew more of what is allowed and what is not. I wish I could read some hebrew and be able to say prayers. Even if I don’t believe in most of it. I wish that today, instead of feeling out of place and awkward, that I had some time to soak up all the energy that was in that center, all that sacred spirit, and take it in properly. 

I think today I understood more about the tradition of setting a stone ontop of the grave site/ tombstone at each visit. Like all the flowers displayed, the little stones slowly accumulate and serve as a reminder of who was there. That this person was important. That love doesn’t go away. 

After visiting the center, we went to my grandmother’s grave site. I hadn’t been back since the day of the funeral. It’s been less than a year, so there is no tombstone yet, just the mound and a little marker. We stuck these huge plastic flowers into the mound, (since real ones are not allowed), that I know my grandma would have loved. My grandma really loved all kinds of flowers and gardening, even when my grandparents lived in a fairly small apartment in brooklyn. She would have pots of plants out on the fire escape and hanging from the ceiling, and flowers on all of the tables that she tended to.

I had a similar experience at her grave that I did when I was trying to pray and ask for help at the center. You’re supposed to do the same thing at the grave of a family member, ask for guidance and help, leave a stone, and take a stone for remembrance and good luck. I just couldn’t focus. I was looking out onto the other neatly arranged mounds. Some had these beautifully intricate tombstones with the face of a loved one engraved. The one across from where my grandma is buried was covered with flowers, so that none of the mound could be seen. Just a celebration of flowers stuck in the mud. It was hard for me to connect that this was the place she was buried. She was lying beneath my feet under ground. I think I didn’t want to know that. I started to get flashbacks to the funeral, the way everyone’s face looked months back. The way we all shoveled some of that dirt. Her coffin in the middle of the synagogue, with her placed in it. That moment when it hit me that she was gone. And then my uncle asked my grandma out loud to help me out and look over me. As if she was actually there with us. He spoke to her like he always did, not sad at all, but just like always. It was almost as if I could hear her answering back. I didn’t expect to get that emotional then, or now as I’m writing it all down. It’s hard not to miss her voice, her little poems/rhymes that she used to say to us as kids, and just her presence. It’s not about death, it’s about losing someone you love. Whether that’s physically through death, or just moving apart, it hurts. And again, theres this part of me that wants to believe she heard every word, and that she is helping me out. I really hope she is, I need it.