Last Thursday through Sunday proved to touch several aspects of life.
During the course of these days, I ran into the depths of sadness to the heights of happiness.
When a person comes through this to the other side, there’s a dizzying almost vertigo-like feeling trying to figure out just what happened and what are the messages linked to these milestones.
So let’s start with Thursday. It was a day that I dreaded, and I didn’t even know the sadness would come with that day.
My wife Lisa and I have a small group of friends we worship with, we share angst over the Orioles with, and we exchange stories about our children and grandchildren with. Just about everyone in our group is a couple.
Bob and Karen were one of those couples. We lost Karen to cancer. She outlived the months she was given by her physicians, she saw both of her sons marry, and she became a grandmother twice. But last Thursday morning at 2:30, my phone rang to awaken me with the news, Karen was gone.
We buried her that same afternoon, and then we made sure that a full-schedule of meals and friends would be there for Bob during his seven-day mourning period.
I was honored to be a pallbearer, with five others who carried Karen’s plain, wooden casket. I whispered to Karen inside that I loved her and thanked her for being my friend.
Saturday or the Jewish Sabbath took on an entirely different feeling. On that morning, Rabbi Shimon and Masha Miriam Grady held a bris (ritual circumcision upholding Judaism’s covenant with God) for their eight-day-old son. The Gradys, West Ocean City residents, made the trip to a Baltimore area synagogue with several Berlin and Ocean City residents to hold the ceremony.
Jewish tradition holds that a male baby is named at his bris. The Gradys’ new son is named Uriel Eitan.
The spirited singing and soulful prayers welcoming a new little person to the community made me think that hardly 48 hours had passed since we were there to help complete a person’s life. From out of the sadness of Karen’s passing, we were now celebrating a new beginning.
Finally Sunday came around, and we were traveling from to Long Island, N.Y. In 1990 we met a family while we lived in Southfield, Mi. named Steve and Joanne Levine. They have since moved to New York. We were there to share in the blessing of their son David’s wedding.
If you know of a young man or woman who have had to conquer many different obstacles to obtain success, then you know something about David. Without getting into specifics, this wedding day was richly deserved in the life of this young man and his parents. The dancing and singing at the reception was memorable. And the part of the wedding where David was lifted on high on a chair was something I’ll always remember.
Karen Rosenfelt, Uriel Eitan Grady and David Levine. Four days. Three different people, three vastly different places in our collective journeys.
I was given a quick memory of an earlier setting while I was watching David dance at his wedding. It was Karen, dressed in a beautiful formal dress, holding the hands of her dear ones, and dancing at the wedding of one of her sons. Her joy was something we could all feel.
She would have loved the tradition of the bris; and she would have been dancing at David’s wedding.
It’s that joy that hopefully keeps us all moving forward.
I know that’s the oxygen she breathed.
She would have danced.
During the course of these days, I ran into the depths of sadness to the heights of happiness.
When a person comes through this to the other side, there’s a dizzying almost vertigo-like feeling trying to figure out just what happened and what are the messages linked to these milestones.
So let’s start with Thursday. It was a day that I dreaded, and I didn’t even know the sadness would come with that day.
My wife Lisa and I have a small group of friends we worship with, we share angst over the Orioles with, and we exchange stories about our children and grandchildren with. Just about everyone in our group is a couple.
Bob and Karen were one of those couples. We lost Karen to cancer. She outlived the months she was given by her physicians, she saw both of her sons marry, and she became a grandmother twice. But last Thursday morning at 2:30, my phone rang to awaken me with the news, Karen was gone.
We buried her that same afternoon, and then we made sure that a full-schedule of meals and friends would be there for Bob during his seven-day mourning period.
I was honored to be a pallbearer, with five others who carried Karen’s plain, wooden casket. I whispered to Karen inside that I loved her and thanked her for being my friend.
Saturday or the Jewish Sabbath took on an entirely different feeling. On that morning, Rabbi Shimon and Masha Miriam Grady held a bris (ritual circumcision upholding Judaism’s covenant with God) for their eight-day-old son. The Gradys, West Ocean City residents, made the trip to a Baltimore area synagogue with several Berlin and Ocean City residents to hold the ceremony.
Jewish tradition holds that a male baby is named at his bris. The Gradys’ new son is named Uriel Eitan.
The spirited singing and soulful prayers welcoming a new little person to the community made me think that hardly 48 hours had passed since we were there to help complete a person’s life. From out of the sadness of Karen’s passing, we were now celebrating a new beginning.
Finally Sunday came around, and we were traveling from to Long Island, N.Y. In 1990 we met a family while we lived in Southfield, Mi. named Steve and Joanne Levine. They have since moved to New York. We were there to share in the blessing of their son David’s wedding.
If you know of a young man or woman who have had to conquer many different obstacles to obtain success, then you know something about David. Without getting into specifics, this wedding day was richly deserved in the life of this young man and his parents. The dancing and singing at the reception was memorable. And the part of the wedding where David was lifted on high on a chair was something I’ll always remember.
Karen Rosenfelt, Uriel Eitan Grady and David Levine. Four days. Three different people, three vastly different places in our collective journeys.
I was given a quick memory of an earlier setting while I was watching David dance at his wedding. It was Karen, dressed in a beautiful formal dress, holding the hands of her dear ones, and dancing at the wedding of one of her sons. Her joy was something we could all feel.
She would have loved the tradition of the bris; and she would have been dancing at David’s wedding.
It’s that joy that hopefully keeps us all moving forward.
I know that’s the oxygen she breathed.
She would have danced.