Goodbye Jon

People assume that the ritual of saying Kaddish imposes some great burden or obligation on the survivor – that the person reciting the Kaddish, typically the child of the departed, has undertaken some enormous task, has assumed some extraordinary commitment. In fact, just the opposite is true. The practice of saying Kaddish is actually comforting, because it allows one to prolong the process of saying goodbye to the departed. And instead of feeling burdened, one looks forward to the chance each day to stand at the close of minyan and recite that prayer.

It’s hard to imagine any death that doesn’t come too soon. Even for someone old and unwell, there’s never a right time to go. There’s always another visit, another conversation, another holiday or landmark to celebrate. But this was even more true for Jon, whose departure was so sudden and unexpected, and who died long before his time on earth should have run out. Who knew that our visit at Andy’s was the last time we’d have together? When I heard the news that he’d been killed skiing in France, I felt cheated; that I’d left things unsaid when we last spoke. I felt that I hadn’t been given time to say goodbye properly, to express everything I felt in my heart.

So for the past eleven months, as I went to minyan and said the Kaddish, I had a chance to think about Jon every time. It’s not possible to stand and recite that prayer without having your mind drift off to the deceased. The words become rote; they roll off your tongue without any need even to glance at the page. Instead of thinking of the words, as I stood and looked into the ark, I pictured Jon, often at Andy’s where I’d last seen him, sometimes at Carvel or the scene of some other high school misadventure, and not infrequently in that picture of him standing somewhere in the Alps, with nothing but snow and mountaintops behind him.

A couple months ago I pulled up a Jewish calendar on the web, and calculated eleven months from the day we went to Aspen for the memorial service. I picked that day, because with no Jewish burial, there was no other landmark for the commencement of the period of mourning. This evening was the last day. It was a blizzard here in Rochester, and it took some time for us to get a minyan; you can’t recite the Kaddish without a minyan. I was permitted to lead the service. Susan and Danny came, both a bit late because of the weather, but both arriving in time before the Kaddish. After eleven months, I’m still not reconciled to his loss – to the fact that we won’t ever again have the chance to catch up, to reminisce, to share a friendship that stretches back in time. But at least, for eleven months I’ve had the chance, every time I went to shul, to visit again with my friend. And this has, in some small measure, allowed me the time to say what I would have said last March, had I had the chance. Goodbye Jon, I’ll miss you.