Torah/Life Writings

I had never been so thin as an adult.  I was experimenting with being on a “cleanse” and ate only non-processed food, did not eat past 7 p.m. and drank more water.  I wouldn’t even eat ketchup or anything made with any kind of flour, only whole grains.  Rice cakes were a big stretch and I only ate them when traveling.  At first I told myself that my experiment was to see if this would help me sleep better, or clear up the inflammatory pain I was living with, as promised. However, this form of eating soon became addictive.  I just couldn’t eat anything processed. Even if I wanted to. After several months, friends said, “this is enough”.  But I couldn’t stop.

In retrospect I now see I was committed to this restrictive eating because I was grieving.  My mother hadn’t died yet, but the mother I knew was gone.  She had a form of dementia that played havoc on her life, but also in our lives.  Her personality was stubborn, hostile, and combative.  For many years she wouldn’t accept any help and our dad was also suffering because of her.  Mom periodically threatened him with divorce, locked him out of their apartment, and then would hold him hostage inside after he was able to get back in. Mom would call me every day begging me to visit as if I hadn’t been there in months.  It had only been 6 hours since a visit or a call.  There were meetings with the staff at their assisted living facility threatening, ever so nicely, that if we couldn’t get my mother out of bed for basic hygiene, she couldn’t live there anymore.  There was the yelling when I brought my mom something she had asked me for but she had forgotten, and didn’t believe me.  There were the moments mom insisted she could walk, and then would fall to the floor because she had forgotten she couldn’t walk. Doing this cleanse was the only thing I felt I could control. 

When mom died, someone brought chocolate to the shiva. And it was all over.  I was free.  I no longer needed to control my life.  I could grieve openly.  There was a burial, a shiva, a year of kaddish.  I began to eat again.

My eating during the pandemic feels ever so similar to those days on the cleanse.  The chaos and the timelessness of this grieving feels like how I felt when mom was alive, but was no longer the mother I had known.   The only thing I can control now is what I put in my mouth or my daily walks and exercise classes.  Trust me, we are not hungry.  Food is available, but because we are trying to stay out of stores, getting food safely has become an urban hunting adventure, but not impossible.  Even though the pantry and freezer are full, there is a sense of hoarding, at the same time a sense of scarcity.  I don’t use the entire onion or jar of tomato sauce.  I ration the avocado and don’t waste a potato.  I divide up a meal and freeze half of it for another day and conserve each piece of fresh fruit, freezing some for the time we might not be able to get any.

Loss of control and living with uncertainty is probably the number one issue for most of us at this time. We are all mourning so many losses and we don’t know when this will end. Loss or change of jobs, loss of housing, not being able to see our elders, loss of touch and seeing full faces, loss of medical and dental care, loss of our chiropractors and acupuncturists, loss of comfort being in the physical presence of others, loss of future, loss of regular ways we exercise, play, eat, shop, and loss of regular modes of dating.  Nothing is the same. Nothing. We can’t even celebrate a new baby or a wedding together without worry. Worshipping has gone online.  We don’t know what our new normal will be or for how long.  We have no familiar viddui, no moment of death, no burial, no shiva, no in-person tahara or shmira, and no kaddish for what we have lost.  The grief enters our pores and continues day after day. 

During the pandemic, illness and mourning don’t look like anything we have known. Those who have lost loved ones to COVID -19 are mourning the suddenness or mystery of their death. The loneliness and separation of their dying, not being able to be in the hospital by their side as they would during normal times.  There is a fear of others in the family getting sick or dying.  The loss of a funeral, or a funeral as we know it.  The loss of in-person shivas.  Those who lost loved ones during this time not to COVID-19 are also grieving their death in unusual ways.  They also may not have been able to travel to be close to their loved one to comfort them, be with them bedside at a hospital, attend their funeral or shiva as we have known it to be. Imagine not being able to attend the funeral of your parent or spouse.  Or only attend the funeral of your child with the maximum of nine selected others. If you are “lucky”.

Jewish tradition is so smart about mourning.  We get time periods dedicated to different parts of our year of mourning.  And then, we have 5 times a year to honor and remember those who have died.  (Four holy days and the anniversary of the death of our loved ones.)  We even have a day to commemorate collective losses of our people starting with the destruction of the Temple, Tisha B’Av. What do we have to ritualize this moment? This moment will last an uncertain time. Our usual times of mourning aren’t adequate to mark the losses we feel now.  We are barely treading water in a rising sea of mourning without any container or rituals to help us mark the time.

But what I really want to talk about is haircuts. In some Jewish communities men don’t shave or cut their hair after an important death for 30 days.  When my parents died (two years apart to the day), it felt right to let my hair grow until I stopped saying Kaddish at 11 months. It wasn’t required of me.  I just wanted to make sure I didn’t slip back into “life as usual”.  Each of their deaths had a very strong impact on me and I needed to feel their loss in my body. I had a lot to process.  So I let my hair grow.  It felt right.

For some, being without a decent haircut has become an important reminder of being out of control. I imagine it says, not only is your job, your housing, your movement, your family life, your school affected, but even your identity, how you appear to others. The county has not opened hair salons for many months now and some of us are getting raggedy (and for those who color their hair, they are showing their grey).  To gain control, some have resorted to home haircuts and some are even going to other counties where hair salons are open, although not necessarily a safe or wise practice.

I’m a vain woman.  When I sensed my dad was going to die within 24 hours, I snuck away and got a haircut, knowing I wouldn’t be getting one anytime soon.  A week before the official Shelter in Place, I knew it was coming, and got my last haircut.  It might have been the last thing I did with anyone outside my family.

I’m hungry for familiar Jewish rituals to honor the grief of the great losses we are all experiencing during this pandemic. Just like I was moved to not cut my hair during the first year of mourning my parents, it has become clear to me to not cut my short, curly, grey hair until we can all be physically together again in our synagogues, at our tables, at the restaurants. Until we can hug, and touch without fear of each other’s breath.  Until we can dance at each other’s weddings and gather together to mourn a death.

Although I have nice thick hair, I look unkempt when it grows out without help from my beloved hair stylist Pamela.  But this time isn’t about me and my hair. This is a time of communal mourning and communal strength. Accepting the fullness of my hair, as shaggy as it will become until we can be together again, will remind me that our lives have changed.  There will be no denial.  My vanity will just have to take second chair. 

My hope is that having this intentional physical daily reminder connecting me to the collective experience of the pandemic will also allow me to have a sense of control, in a healthy way, while dealing with the uncertainties and losses.

My heart’s prayer is for a time when we are dancing together, without masks, without fear.  And I will have short hair.