Yom Kippur Yizkor: Finding Life Again After Tragedy

(Delivered by Rabbi Sacks on Wednesday, October 5, 2022)

It was an ordinary day. Grandma Suzie had taken Greta, her two-year-old granddaughter, out for a walk in her Upper West Side neighborhood. She babysat at least once a week, and tonight was going to be a sleepover, to give Greta’s exhausted parents some time off.

Grandma Suzie and Greta were licking their ice cream cones sitting on one of their favorite benches just a block from Grandma’s apartment in New York City.

Without warning–a brick fell suddenly from an eighth-story windowsill of the poorly maintained building and hit Greta smack in the middle of her tiny skull.

Grandma felt a sharp pain as the brick bounced from her grand-baby’s head to her leg, shattering her bone. There was blood everywhere.

Rushed into surgery to release the pressure on her brain, Greta was not able to withstand the trauma and died a few hours later.

All the while in the hospital, Grandma Suzie, weeping softly, moaned repeatedly, “Why couldn’t it have been me.” Everyone was numb. This could not be happening.

Tragically, all this did happen. Greta’s father, Jayson Greene, is a writer and published a memoir, Once More We Saw Stars, about how he and his wife Stacy got through this unimaginable loss.

Like Jayson and Stacy, many of us here today at this Yizkor hour, have had to learn how to find a way forward when there was no road back, and no blueprint exists for what to do or how to manage.

After donating her organs, the family covered Greta’s battered body with her favorite scarlet polka-dotted dress, the one she called “my pretty dress.” They added her beloved stuffed animal, a yellow dog named Daisy, and her blanket.

Greene wrote what it felt like upon surrendering their daughter’s lifeless body. “The pieces of our lives are scattered everywhere, and we can never pick them up again;…death hits all corners of the world; it comes for drunk teenagers who careen off dark roads; it comes for babies tangled in Venetian blinds, it comes for children floating in pools and death came for my 2-year old daughter, hit by a random falling brick.”

 Like Jayson Greene, we wonder how to continue with our lives when someone we love so dearly is taken from us. What we want at the moment is, of course, not possible: things won’t go back to normal.

Jayson would walk along the river and holler into the water, “Oh sweetie, I’m so angry, he would sob, “I look for you everywhere I go. You were only two-years old when that chunk of brick hit you. Why did this happen to you?”

 Some questions don’t have answers. And when they don’t, finding a path is difficult. So, sometimes we try a number of modalities. Jayson and Stacy attended grief counseling, went to a retreat called “from Grieving to Believing,” visited a medium, and struggled to find their way through shock, disbelief, and unbearable sadness.

They were told that a broken heart is an open heart, and a heart that is open can be healed and reformed–re-formed–into new types of love. It is necessary to find ways to take the broken heart and allow it to feel the pain while still permitting it to grow. They wrote letters to their dead daughter,

“Oh, sweetie pie, we miss you every day. We miss you every morning when you don’t wake us up and every night when we don’t get to kiss you good night. We remember how it felt to be parents.”

 This is the world of Grief. Many of us have been somewhere that approaches there. Some of us here may feel we are there right now.

—–———————–

We are told by neuro-scientists, that while alive–we have absorbed so much of our loved ones that when they die, they do not totally perish, because significant parts of them are still in our brain. In this way, they live–in us.

Their laughter and their joys, their hurts and their sorrows, their stories and their desires…have not been lost when bodies are gone. Historian Theodore White once noted that when you press a block of pure gold against a block of steel, they exchange molecules with each other. He wrote:

“When people are pressed close, they act the same way. Part of you enters them; part of them enters you…Long after you might forget times and places, they’re still a part of you.”

During Yizkor, we invite those who are no longer here back into our hearts, to come to the forefront of our memory, our consciousness. We reflect on their legacies. They are still a part of us.

Some memories might be too raw to embrace, others we might have to wrestle with, others still may bring sadness or pain, while yet others may offer release, even a piece of healing.

One gift of Yizkor is the realization that while our loved ones left this earth, they did not leave us. “Pay attention to the signs,” the medium had told the Greenes after Greta died. “Learn to be receptive. The souls and spirits of the dead do try to reach us, but they can only do it with little signs. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from them.”

I know that I have received signs. And, over time, I have heard from people close to me who died years ago. I have heard my mother when I have needed direction or sought advice. I now smile knowing how pleased she would be of what I have accomplished and who I have become. My first husband, Mel, who succumbed to AIDS-HIV, has watched over me and has re-directed me when I needed it. My childhood friend Matt, who I considered a brother, was killed in a car accident in a freak March snowstorm. He has continued to befriend me. And there have been more signs from others. Thinking of their impact on my life brings wholeness and peace.

As our High Holy Day prayers remind us, our days are like a breath; our lives like the fading flower, the passing shadow, the vanishing cloud, the dispersing wind, the disappearing dream. There is so much about life and death that we can never know. So we all find ways to keep ourselves together. Listening, writing in journals, hollering on private walks, sharing precious stories are all baby steps towards healing. For some, sometimes, more dramatic steps are needed.

Jayon and his wife Stacy knew they could not stay in their Brooklyn apartment. For them moving to a new neighborhood was essential. They could not continue to walk the same blocks or visit the parks that Greta loved.

For months they stayed with friends and in AirBnB’s until they found a new home. Co-workers, colleagues, and family members raised money and planted a tree in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in Greta’s memory. Money was also raised for the hospital PICU, to help other families with small children who faced trauma. All these actions helped the family to slowly start a process of restoration.

When, after a year, Stacy became pregnant, Jayson and she worried that they would have a replacement child, and forget Greta. On what would have been Greta’s third birthday, the Greenes went to Taos, New Mexico to a unique grief retreat. They wanted to understand how to honor Greta while bringing another child into their lives. There, with a drum beating, Jayson had a profound experience at a “spirit journey” ceremony. It changed everything for him.

He was taken on eagle wings and soared above a forest. The eagle dropped him into a wide-open field where he lay on his back when Greta walked up, dressed in the clothes that she was wearing the day before the accident. “Hi Daddy,” she offered.

She beckoned and he followed her into the forest to a massive pit of earth with humid loamy soil. Greta scrambled down the side of the pit and they met at the bottom. Greene writes,

The dirt down here breathes. Greta kneels to it and, with her two small hands, scoops up rich living earth, letting it stream from her palms as she holds it up to me: See? Daddy? See? And then I understand: when I am returned to the earth, Greta would be literally everywhere. Her love and presence would blanket me. She would be flowers, bees, sky, roots, dirt, frogs, water….We were suddenly back in the light of the field. Greta waves and offers, “Good-bye, Daddy.”

The vision continues and the eagle rips at the father’s prostrate body. Greene surrenders. The eagle’s talons pull out Jayson’s heart. He notes, “My chest cavity withers, plants bloom in my blackening rib cage. I become Greta, and Greta becomes me. The two of us are soil cupped in the palms of the world.” And then the guide, leading this vision quest, slows down his drum beat and tells Jayson to open his eyes.

My eyes open. Oh, my darling girl Greta,…I finally understand.

 A year and three months after Greta’s untimely death, Jayson and Stacy give birth to their son Harrison. Having held their firstborn child’s corpse in their arms, they were no longer naïve. They faced the world knowing that something terrible could happen at any moment. Yet Greta’s death taught them–that though the world itself can be pitifully dispiriting, it can still be immensely beautiful.

At the end of the book Greene tells his son to stay close to his sister and writes them a letter.

 Harrison, baby boy. We must learn to balance something very tricky. You, me, your mother and your sister. We must learn to embrace our fragile lives. I feared when you were delivered into my hands that we were going to damage you, for my wounds are still healing and a dead corner in my heart remains.

 Greta, baby girl, I can still feel you. You want to help us find peace. I know you do not struggle, and I sense you stepping in to direct us on this journey. Stay close to Harrison, OK? There are many things about his life that only you can teach him. He needs you. And please stay close to me and Mommy.  We need you, too, and we will look for you wherever we go.

 Come close, children. I want us to walk in this field together. See the sky. Feel the cool air. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Are we ready? Take my hands, kids. Ok, let’s go.

 We can appreciate this father’s particular journey to wholeness, and we can relate to his need to keep his deceased daughter close, especially as he embraces his living child. Sometimes this is what we must do to honor the legacy of the people we lost–living our lives in ways that matter, being the best we can be with hearts that haven’t yet mended. And, like Jayson, we can still look for the signs.

During the 24 hours of this fast day, we stand at the place where life and death meets.

And we find ourselves almost ready to begin Yizkor. The service only has a minimum of prayers and then moments of silence to think about–and feel the losses.

That’s intentional: Yizkor provides a communal space for individual reflection and remembering. Though many seats are taken, empty spaces are everywhere. They are the spaces that our beloved “departed ones” no longer fill.

So, now it is our time to be vulnerable, to feel, to weep. Among the purposes of Yizkor is this: we quiet down to receive signs and to hear what our loved ones might be telling us.

Let us take time now to recall loved ones, family members and friends, who are no longer here on earth. I now offer a brief meditation, so please close your eyes, take a few deep, cleansing breaths, and find a comfortable position.

Breathe In – Hold your Breath – And breathe out slowly

Breathe In – Hold your Breath – And breathe out slowly

Now imagine….

Who would you like to have seated next to you?

If you could choose anyone who has passed, and bring them back right now,

who would it be?…

When you have chosen someone, imagine what they would look like?…

What age are they? In their prime?…The age that they were when they died?…

What are they wearing? Any favorite jewelry, accessories, shoes, a coat or a hat?…

Do you remember their scent? Favorite perfume or cologne?…

Can you sense their presence?…

Are they communicating with you now? What are they trying to tell you?…

Do you need to ask or tell them something? Go ahead….

Know that they are so glad to sit next to you today. Sit quietly, remembering;  experiencing this moment….\

Continue to keep your eyes closed….

Some of us recall parents who gave us life, who cared for us and nurtured us and who taught us to take our first steps on our own.

Some of us remember a spouse or partner–a friend or lover–with whom we shared so much of our lives, our failures and achievements, joys and sorrows, intimate secrets.

Continue to breathe. Be still. But breathe. Feel, see, smell, sense who is coming to sit next to you, and remember.

Some of us recall brothers and sisters, who matured together with us, sometimes competing with us, and sometimes encouraging us on, bound to us by a life-long relationship.

Some of us remember children, entrusted to us too briefly, to whom we gave our loving care and from whom we received a trust that enriched our lives. Their memory is always with us.

Many of us recall relatives who knew us, and beloved friends who walked beside us in life, guiding us, listening to us, supporting us.

Our lives are shaped by those who were alongside us as we walked on our path.

Take a few more precious moments to visit with those you have loved, and who you invited to sit next to you during this Yizkor service–a profound time of remembering.

May memories of love inspire us to love;

May painful memories impel us to mitigate the pain others experience;

And may we be granted the strength to reaffirm life’s meaning, even in the face of death.

Sit quietly for a few more sacred moments.

Now, let your breathing slowly go back to normal.

When you are ready, open your eyes.

May G!d continue to comfort all of us who continue to mourn, and may the memories, the signs, and the presence of our loved ones bring us healing and peace.

Amen!