I lunched with a recently widowed friend, hoping she would benefit from activity after the death of her long-time spouse. I was newly acquainted with this friend in mourning. As she described the mourning practices of her Jewish faith, I was transported back to my six-year-old view of my own mother’s widowhood.
My father just never came home. He was killed by a drunk driver returning from work one night. This was a big event in my little life, involving many relatives weeping. I didn’t understand that my father would never come home again. I didn’t understand that I would never see him again. That realization came 12 years later when I found myself examining the faces of strangers in a new city. At 18 years old, I realized I was still looking for him. Until that moment I hadn’t really believed he was dead and that meant “finally gone”.
What I did know at age 6 was that my mother wore the kreeyah, a half-torn black ribbon pinned to her clothing. She pinned it to her left side, over her heart. The ribbon is worn during shiva, the seven day period following the funeral. It also may be worn for a 30 day period.
A little girl swirling in dark waters of loss and change, I keenly felt my mother’s emotional draw to this new little thing–this torn black ribbon. She was clinging to it as everything collapsed around her. I too needed to hold something to hold, so I followed her closely and asked about her kreeyah. I felt my mother drawn to its power and to its placement. Could I hold on to it too? The meaning of death was beyond my grasp, but the mysteriously ever-present torn ribbon was perhaps within my reach.
My 35-year-old father’s death, at the hands of a repeat offender drunk driver was sudden and disastrous. My mother, not yet 30 had three children under 10 years old and poverty prone parents. She had no professional skills and a small life insurance policy. Our new circumstances, and the meaning and finality of my father’s death were completely mysterious to me. My mother’s attachment to the kreeyah was not.
My eyes fixed on her fastidious placement of this half-torn ribbon. Watching her pin it so carefully, I finally asked why it was only half-torn. She said that she had lost her husband, but she had not lost everything. Her heart was only half broken. Life and family would continue even with this precarious tear in its fabric. The ribbon worn over my mother’s heart had its own reassuring power. We had been hurt, but we would go on.
My attention was glued to my mother’s actions for reassurance. The rest of my life was falling apart. Perhaps the ritual of the kreeyah would save us. One morning I spied my mother worriedly searching the laundry hamper. Her furiously grasping hands probing the dirty clothes conveyed panic and danger. I asked her “What are you doing?” Without stopping her search, she told me she had forgotten to remove the kreeyah from her shirt which was now in the dirty laundry hamper or (God forbid) in the washing machine. Her distress helped me grasp the threat. The ribbon, meant to be worn and half-torn, could become lost or all-the-way-torn in the washing machine!
Now the half-torn ribbon turned into a scary thing. It was no longer a Jewish teaching about mourning and the continuation of life. The ribbon itself could become action from the hand of God–ready to punish our carelessness. If care of the ribbon were neglected, and if it became all-the-way-torn, the ribbon had the power to threaten our lives. The ribbon’s symbolic meaning, acknowledging loss, became a frightening weapon and a threat.
I watched my mother’s search as a helpless child. The urgency and her fear frightened me, but I remained silent and unmoving as fear overtook her. Was this the beginning of learned helplessness? For several years after my father’s death, I have no memory of my life. When we moved to another house, in another town, I was able to more actively engage. My life went on.
Now watching the horror of distant family members in Israel my learned helplessness comes back to dominate me. What do I know? What can I do? I ask myself over and over again with no answer. But I remember the kreeyah, and I think of the many families grieving over terrible and vivid loss. There is a sea of black ribbons, or in more Orthodox families–torn black clothing.
From a distance, I am remembering that it is only half torn. Will they? They cannot put it back together, but do they understand that it is only torn part way? I read one man’s account of waking every morning since October 7, remembering what happened, and dissolving in tears. But what will they do after the grief and mourning? Will they acknowledge that life will go on?Might they continue to indulge in Biblical vengeance invoking God’s wrath? Will they be swept away by learned helplessness, depending on a government that stoked hate and destruction? After the mourning can they find a way to make peace with those who wish for it?
