By Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence
Sometimes I am called to the homes of people I’ve never met, to sit with them in their quiet space to help them overcome their grief. To help them heal.
While in the beginning it seemed a little strange to enter into unknown chambers and talk to people about their personal pain and struggles, now it’s not so strange. I’ve found my own higher purpose or calling, and I have the enormous opportunity to help them channel their pain into higher purpose and their grief into gratitude. To compose their own personal song of Dayenu.
No, I’m not a therapist or a counselor that specializes in bereavement, but at this point I’m not sure how relevant formal education is when helping people overcome a personal trauma.
The only experience I have is my own life and how truly awry it went in a split second, so when I hear that something similar has happened to someone else, I feel a personal duty and responsibility to explain in detail the feelings they will encounter. To assure them that the thoughts and feelings they and their children are experiencing are normal and to not worry because soon they will pass. Grief, we now know, goes through stages that are a normal and natural part of processing the loss.
And then I tell them something earth-shattering, that they will survive, and one day they will be happy again. They will find joy in their lives and their kids will laugh again, too. Survival is built into our DNA.
It’s not easy to convince someone who is currently undergoing trauma, just like it wasn’t easy for me when I went through my own trauma five years ago.
For me, Pesach will always hold way more importance than just the spiritual significance of the holiday.
It was shortly after Pesach of 2019 that I lost my husband Moshe, and although people will tell you how unprepared one can be for such a tragedy, losing Moshe brought me to a completely new version of unpreparedness.
Just before this Pesach, I felt an eerily similar type of déjà vu as I sat beside a person who was going through their own personal trauma.
As I sat there, I recalled the plans I had made before the tragedy happened and how, despite all the planning and preparation that goes into making Pesach, life had a way of throwing a monkey wrench into all my plans and everything exploded. All at once.
At that moment, while everything is exploding around you, all you need is someone to help you put your life into perspective and do some damage control, taking the wheel of the car before it heads off a cliff. Because yes, you will feel like your life has become a car wreck. You can’t see past the initial disaster.
I remember doing things on autopilot for a long time because that was the only way I could operate, happy to rely on rote without fully understanding why I was doing those things, just knowing I had to get through the moment and those things had to get done.
Truthfully, it felt like I was in an alternate universe. I cringe now when I think about what other people were saying/thinking about me during that awful time. I shudder when I remember hoping and wishing they weren’t pointing at me at the grocery store as I ran my errands, and how, only a short time previously, I was like any other member of the tribe. All I wanted was to blend in but it was impossible.
I realized at that moment that I had to navigate this new life and preserve what I could from my former one. On a certain level, my old life was stolen from me and I had to find a new one. A new normal.
When I meet with people who try to convince me that they have just spoken to their husbands a few minutes before and tried reasoning with the only person who could understand how crazy they were feeling, I’m usually at a loss for words because of the rawness of what’s happening.
It is this rawness of emotion that demands we toss aside conversational etiquette for the moment and just find the feeling we are experiencing without making others uncomfortable. To find the feeling and experience it, allowing it to exist without taking over.
Because all those considerations of propriety and etiquette are over once the news travels like wildfire, and friends and acquaintances descend on you with a combination of shock and horror, wondering how you will get through this.
That’s when I get the phone call. That’s when I relive a part of my life I’d prefer to bury and never think about again.
I want to be strong for these people and be their support but I also don’t want to mislead them and make them think that this will be anything other than the most difficult challenge they will go through in their lives. But I also want them to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and eventually they will reach it if they stay the course. Hope. Yes, the most I wish to give them is hope.
To be honest, sometimes I can’t fully put myself back into that frame of mind no matter how hard the other person is hurting because of how painful it is for me to revisit it.
So, instead, I end up sounding like a cheerleader instead of a common traveler on the road of life, a sympathetic friend who has gone through hell and emerged somewhat intact.
I usually don’t cry until after I leave the person’s house because emotions are unpredictable like that. They come and go of their own choosing; we are merely vessels for them.
The fact is, everyone’s brand of grief looks different and while I used to make off color jokes about death that would horrify the people around me, ultimately it made me feel more like myself, so I did what I had to do. Everyone has to find what works for them. People respond differently to various events and tragedies. The point is to work through the feelings so they don’t take up permanent residence. We sit with them, we experience them, but we don’t want grief to permanently move into our house and never leave.
There are so many ways to work through our grief: We talk, we cry; we use humor, gratitude, and the practice of saying “Dayenu,” a song whose meaning I believe we don’t fully appreciate.
We sing it in a childlike tune, mainly to engage the kids at the Seder, but seldom do we stop to understand the words we’re singing. The fifteen lines which stand for the fifteen gifts given to the Children of Israel by Hashem. They are divided into five stanzas of three verses each about the stages of being freed from slavery and the miracles we witnessed along the way due to Hashem’s kindness.
As we end each line, we acknowledge the great kindness by saying, “Dayenu”: that would have been enough!
Why do we do this?
Because we finally have a chance to understand all the gifts we’ve been given. We no longer just expect them and continually take, but finally have the chance to map it all out and end each statement with “It would have been enough.” Each gift given is enough on its own. Each gift was wonderful, but look at the plethora of gifts I was given: a veritable embarrassment of riches!
Judaism is wired in such a way that we never forget all the bounties we’ve been given and how much we have to be grateful for. From Birchat hashachar to Ani Maamin to Dayenu.
From opening your hands each morning palm side up and lifting your face upwards, reciting “Poteiach et yadecha umasbeya lechol chai ratzon.”
There are so many reminders set in place to make sure we never forget, even when we are not ready to recognize the truth.
I sit with people and listen to their comments and questions. I’m not there to give them a fast pass on grieving or supply them with tips on how to survive the shock and horror of losing a loved one. But sometimes, just sitting there and smiling from my heart is all they need.
Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence is a native of the Five Towns community, a mom of 5, a writer, and a social media influencer.
