Rebecca
August 1979
She was there, but she wasn’t there. Rebecca wavered before the cloth-covered headstone. She felt numb, an absence of sensation that, as a physician, she knew was a bad sign. Knew objectively, but could do nothing about. Let yourself go, baby, David would have said. But David was dead.
The rabbi began: “A thousand years, in the sight of our eternal and merciful Father, are but a day; the years of our life but a passing hour. He grants us life and life He has taken away; praised be His name.”
The birds cheeped in the maple and chestnut trees that grew at the edges of the vast cemetery. A gentle wind fluttered the leaves while Rebecca stood resolutely on the narrow walkway between the graves, her father on one side, her mother on the other. She seemed to be hovering in a narrow corridor, her peripheral vision gone, eclipsing the familiar faces of friends, relatives, colleagues that floated around her as if behind glass, like spectators to her grief. She had struggled to put off this day, this unveiling of the monument, which could have been scheduled months ago. Up to a year after was traditional, but the High Holidays were next month and then it would be too late.
Her mother-in-law had not pressed her. Sarah had not been in a hurry, herself, to finalize the death of her only child. Earlier in the summer they had set off with misgivings for the little shop on Bathurst Street to choose the monument. That experience had been surreal — the tiny old man in shirt sleeves and yarmulke, leading her and her mother-in-law out the back to show them samples. How many different shapes and colours were there to signify death? How was one to choose? How did the little proprietor manage stones that weighed literally tons? His son was larger, greeted them with perfunctory politeness in the yard while hosing down a finished piece of granite.
Poor Sarah had already been down that road when her husband died five years earlier. Rebecca let her take the lead in the arrangements, though she knew Sarah’s pain matched her own. They rarely spoke of their mutual loss, indeed Rebecca realized that she steered clear of Sarah whenever possible, simply to evade the subject. She felt particularly helpless in light of Sarah’s past, a life filled with loss — most of her family had been killed in the Holocaust. Only her sister had survived. What did one say to someone who had lost everything once, and then lost everything again?
The rabbi continued: “David Adler has been taken from our midst. We are pained by the hole in our lives. Yet love is strong as death; the bonds created by love last forever. We have the blessing of memory, through which the lives of our departed continue to be with us.”
Rebecca had driven to the cemetery with her parents, who let her sit quietly in the back while they talked about how nice the salads, cheeses, smoked fish, and herring looked, all ordered from a local restaurant. Would they survive, crammed in the fridge waiting for the guests who were invited after the service? Her sister, Susan, in from Montreal with her husband, how tired she looked, and no wonder, did you see how tall and rambunctious the three boys were? Wonderful boys, so smart. Her parents went quiet then. Rebecca understood the silence. Her younger sister had a husband and children while Rebecca’s husband was lying beneath the stone that was about to be unveiled. She had put off having children until her medical practice was established. But then David was diagnosed with diabetes and one complication followed another. Before her disbelieving eyes, he went blind, developed kidney failure, and died. Her beautiful, beloved David with the red hair and mischievous eyes and irreverent humour.
He would have scoffed at the traditional unveiling. Wasn’t it enough to just erect the stone? Why did Jews have to make such a production out of everything? The man at the funeral home had said something about emotional healing through the expression of grief. As a physician she understood that. But as a mourner, she dreaded it. She desperately evaded her grief, hoping that if she didn’t acknowledge it, it might just lie there beneath the skin and leave her alone. She could go through the motions of her life, tend to her patients, deliver babies, read medical journals during dinner, and not remember, for a few hours at a time, that she had lost the love of her life.
Rebecca was pulled out of her reflections by her mother’s tightening grip on her arm. She tried to focus, but all she could see was David lying lifeless in the hospital, his skin grey, his mouth open.
Sooner than she expected, the rabbi leaned over the stone, pulled the strings that held the cloth covering in place. It fell off to reveal the lettering. Rebecca’s breath caught in her throat. “David Adler” was chiselled in the black granite. “Born December 27, 1945, Died October 5, 1978.” David Adler. No longer a person, now only a name on a stone. Until that moment, her life had seemed suspended, as if time had stood still since David had taken his last breath. Now it was over. He was really dead and death was final. She would never see him again.
“In the name of the family of David Adler, and in the presence of his family and friends, we consecrate this monument to his memory, as a token of our love and respect. May his soul be bound up in the bond of life eternal. Amen. Let us recite the memorial prayer, Eil Malei Rachamim.
“Eil malei rachamim sho-khein bamromim hammtzei m’nukhah… God all compassionate, grant perfect peace in Your sheltering presence, among the holy and the pure… Now the mourner’s kaddish: Yis-gadal V’yis-kadash sh’mey rabo… Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world which He has created to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel speedily and soon; and say Amen.”
Grief was like sex, Rebecca thought, balancing a plate of food on her knees at her parents’ house. It went on in private behind closed doors. Everyone knew it was happening, but no one talked about it. No one really wanted to know the details. Not even those closest to you.
Rebecca, picking at the egg salad on her dish, sat between Iris, her office assistant, and Susan, both of them agreeing that Montreal’s restaurants were more interesting than Toronto’s, but would lose customers since the Anglos were leaving in the wake of the separatist surge. Iris and Susan exchanged the names of favourite restaurants. Rebecca didn’t blame them. It felt good to be distracted. They all understood that this was their job here. They didn’t want to know the pain in her heart any more than she wanted to know about their sex lives.
Most of the guests had eaten lunch, expressed their condolences, and left. Rebecca was helping her mother and sister clear the dishes from the living room when Sarah approached her. She looked tired. Her mother-in-law was an elegant woman of five-foot-two in a black linen skirt and matching jacket. She always wore heels higher than Rebecca, who insisted on sensible shoes. Apart from lipstick, Sarah wore no makeup, but she coloured her chin-length wavy hair auburn. She had been quietly pretty once, still was, really, with her small nose and delicate mouth. She would have looked young if not for her eyes: careful, self-protective, dark with the memory of pain.
“Could I speak to you a moment?” she asked, with her trace of Polish accent.
Rebecca led her to a corner of the living room.
“I hate to ask you today — we’re all upset — but I’ve been putting it off.” She glanced at Rebecca for direction.
Rebecca nodded for her to continue.
“I used to know a woman in Poland, she was connected to my family. She’s coming here in September, bringing her daughter for medical treatment — I think she has leukemia. Anyway, she asked if I could find a doctor for her. And I remembered you worked with a professor who specialized in blood. Am I right? Is it a blood specialist she needs for leukemia?”
Rebecca was confused. She had always understood that Sarah had no one left in Poland. After the Holocaust, Sarah and her sister were the only survivors of her family. “Did you say someone connected to your family?” Rebecca asked.
“It’s a long story.” Sarah stopped there, watched Rebecca.
“I thought people couldn’t leave Poland. The Communist government and all that.”
“She has special permission. Because of her daughter’s illness. I told her I would ask you about the doctor.”
Rebecca could see Sarah was not going to give her any more details. Not that it was her business. She was not about to pry into a past that was laden with heartache. Yet for as long as she had known Sarah, and as long as she had been married to her son, Sarah had never mentioned anyone left behind in Poland.
“I’ll see what I can do.”