Letting Go

A cloudy day had turned into a picture perfect fall day by the time we arrived at Oaklawn, Little Rock's jewish cemetery for the private burial of my Mom.  Under the outstretched limbs of a huge oak tree, two Rabbis officiated graveside, Little Rock's newest Reform clergy, Barry Block, led the brief service and Rabbi Levy, a family friend, who as his first rabbinical charge 28 years ago in Little Rock married my youngest brother Keith, shared some personal thoughts.

As is the jewish custom once the coffin is lowered, a small packet of soil from the Holy Land is sprinkled atop the casket and those who want, help shovel first, a symbolic shovel of earth with the backside of the shovel (to show reluctance), followed by a couple more shovelfuls of soil from the large dirt mound that would later cover the coffin. My mind wandered...

To be truthful I had said goodbye to my Mom way before this day as the Alzheimer's disease had left just a shell of a person who was once my Mother. Her weight loss and muscle atrophy were very pronounced. She had reverted to her native language of German and had started calling out more and more for her parents, sleeping a lot with minimal conversation these last two weeks. Yet, no one could gestimate how long she would remain in this state. I wasn't the only one to utter the words to her that it was ok 'to let go.'

During the previous visit home I had also accompanied my Dad to the funeral home to prearrange both her and his funerals. (Take it from me prearranging our own funerals is indeed a gift for our children.) 

Then, on Thursday of this last week, the day I was to return on my prepurchased round trip ticket for Mom's birthday, I received a call early in the morning that Mom had died peacefully in her sleep. Knowing how 'practical' she was I have no doubt she didn't want me to waste a ticket. She definitely planned this. She was that way...


After the family graveside service, limos returned us to the Temple where before about 200 folks Rabbi Block wove an amazing eulogy from the information we had shared the previous day.  My Dad and brothers asked me to speak for the family, an honor indeed and cathartic to say the least. 


My Mom, Hildegard Sherman, may have left our lives physically but we don't have to 'let go' of the attributes she extolled and loves she embraced as those will continue to live within all of us privileged to have known her as a wife, mother, grandmother and friend.