I still light a candle for him

To My Concerned Friend,

You asked how I’m feeling. You heard that a child passed away in the neighborhood, under similar circumstances to my own son’s petirah a few years back. You wondered how it’s affecting me and if it’s bringing up all these memories for me, putting me back there all over again.

The short answer is no.

The long answer is that it takes me back to shortly after my son’s petirah, when my sister, in an effort to console me, shared that not a day goes by when she doesn’t think about my son. I took that to mean that she only thinks about him once a day. As for myself, I wasn’t going more than five minutes without something triggering a memory or an emotion.

Baruch Hashem, as the years go on, Hashem does give a form of a nechamah of forgetfulness, and I can go an hour or so without thinking about him. But I don’t need a child to pass away to remember my own. He’s top of mind throughout the day.

Someone shared with me that parents who have lost a child think about the child who passed on more than their living children. Unfortunately, that’s so true. There are so many times that memories of my son are triggered. Sometimes it’s because his classmate passes by me, or I hear someone else calling their child by the same name. There are times of year like family milestones, Yamim Tovim, and dates connected to his life like his yahrtzeit, his birthday, Yizkor, and other occasions.

I still somehow manage to mistakenly buy a yarmulke for him each and every time I buy more for his brothers. And I think of him when I cook the foods he liked, like rice, which was his favorite, and apple kugel.

I don’t intentionally think about him as I go about my day, but the memories and connections arise unbidden. I’m not a morose or depressed person. Maybe that’s why you actually thought it took another child to pass on for me to remember my own. Maybe it genuinely appears to the world at large that short of attending a levayah and shivah and hearing about a tragedy my son is otherwise out of sight so he’s out of mind.

I don’t know if I wish it were so. There is something special about that ongoing connection with him, in every corner of my home, in so many activities and daily tasks: when I fold laundry and skip making him a pile, or when I see the clothes that were passed to his younger brother. When my children have these long-winded conversations at least once a week and ask me a million questions about him. When I light Shabbos candles each Friday night and his candle is still there, too.

He’s a part of our family, now only in spirit, and b’ezras Hashem after techiyas hameisim in person as well. I don’t want anyone else to have to feel this pain and this loss, and it hurts to hear someone else went through something similar. But no, it doesn’t take their loss to help me remember my own because I remember my son constantly each and every day anew.

I don’t speak for everyone. Each person’s feelings and reactions and expectations are uniquely theirs. As for me, if you want to check in on me or mention my child, you don’t need to wait for someone else’s child to pass on, because he’s on my mind and in my heart forever.

Yours truly,

Malky

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 953)