In the weeks leading up to Purim, there is never enough time. As some of my readers might already know, I run a small baking business, so the month of Adar can be really hectic and overwhelming while also preparing for the Purim traditions that my daughter and I have established.
When Purim rolls around, I want the day to last forever. Our town is really just the right size for the ultimate Purim experience—just enough traffic on the street to feel the excitement in the air, but not enough that it’s frustrating. Everyone is dressed up and in the Purim spirit. It’s exciting to see the extent of everyone’s creative outlets come to life and I’m always in awe of the positive energy. Who would want that to end? Isn’t that a feeling you want to last forever?
In stark contrast, my husband’s yahrzeit follows a couple of days after Purim, which for me is the complete antithesis of that day. I go from feelings of invigoration and joy to those of stress, reliving the earlier days of confusion and mourning.
The yahrzeit for me is almost like my very own Rosh Hashanah. I turn to my husband each year on that day and daven for his neshama to have an aliyah, but at the same time I ask him to be the shaliach for myself, my daughter and our family and friends to continue to bentch us for the coming year. Time is funny: There are so many moments about the days leading up to his petirah, the actual levaya and the long shiva days that I can remember as if it were yesterday, so wrapping my head around 11 years is impossible. Then I look around and I see how so many things around me have changed, but I still think of myself as David’s wife as though he’s still here.
For anyone who has lost someone young, the loss is not always only about missing the person, but it’s about missing the role the person was supposed to play in your life for many more years to come. I am so very lucky that I get to be a mother, and over the years I have convinced myself that each moment I have of nachas from Mimi, David is experiencing the same nachas in Olam Habah. In the first couple of years, I used to feel very uneasy about making parental decisions without the input of the other parent. At this point, I’m more comfortable with my parenting skills; maybe it’s time, or maybe it’s just called being 35. I imagine that as she gets older and the parenting becomes more complicated, I might begin to feel more uneasy. So all I can do is to seek advice and guidance from those around me whom I imagine David could have respected as much as I do now.
When we were in medical crisis with David for those 14 months, we were surrounded by the creme de la creme of humankind—from the doctors and nurses, to our family and friends. Everyone then seemed so young. While I had no choice but to power through, I witnessed so many people dig really deep to stay so strong for David and myself. So often I draw inspiration from those incredible actions of others and the insurmountable acts of chesed that we received at the time and I strive to be able to pay it forward to others in need.
During these few weeks before Pesach, everyone around seems to be busy. During this transitional season, I will inevitably be spending a disproportionate amount of time looking for the perfect pair of black flats along with the ideal transitional wardrobe within my tight budget. I will spend lots of time masking spring cleaning with Pesach cleaning which at least has a more productive outcome. But the best part about this time of year are those traditions myself and my daughter have created. While I so long for my daughter to have established these traditions with David, I can only continue to hope that we’re living the life he dreamed we would have.
Many times we have all been at a wedding and sheva brachos and we hear the couple being wished mazel tov and the bracha “you should be zoche to build a bayis ne’eman b’yisrael.” During these weeks leading up to Pesach, for anyone who doesn’t have that traditional-looking bayis, life can be extremely challenging. The yom tov season is always hard, but Pesach has the added food component to really complicate things. I always feel like I’m in limbo and feel so miserable that my bayis ne’eman was taken away from me once David was niftar. So this year I’m taking a new approach in the definition of “bayis ne’eman b’yisrael.” While I recognize that I am blessed to be a mother, it’s hard to come up with traditions of our very own for holidays like Pesach; we do have plenty for Chanukah and Purim. But maybe 11 years in this, I have to get better at accepting the visual of my own family unit.
Even amongst our Orthodox society, we have more types of family structures that existed than even 10 years ago. From family units with single-parent homes to communities around us that comprise people who are not married with children, in which their core groups of friends become even closer than family. It’s our traditions that we make for ourselves that ultimately create the bayis we build no matter what it looks like and no matter what we envisioned it to look like in the idealistic years of our late teens.
I’m preaching to myself here as I recognize that this is all easier said than done. But as this yahrzeit season is like my very own Rosh Hashanah, it’s a good time for me to be thinking about new beginnings. May the traditions my daughter and I develop continue to give nachas to our family in this world and all those we have lost and remain in Olam Habah and may the neshama of Dovid Yifrach ben Tuvia continue to have an aliyah from all the nachas we strive to give him.
By Rachel Zamist
Rachel Zamist has lived in the Passaic community for the past 32 years and has watched it grow and transition. She is the beaming mother of Mimi, a seventh-grade student at Rachel’s own alma mater, YBH.
