Reflections on a final Kaddish

Nearly 14 years ago I rose in schul and said a final Kaddish, ending my official period of mourning for my mother. On January 9, I did it again, this time for my father. People asked me why I go. I don’t pray; I think, I read, I write in my mind. Hardly anyone else since I started saying Kaddish in February has stayed with the program at my synagogue, so what do these other people know that I don’t? I doubt if they loved their parents less than I loved mine, so that’s not it. Maybe my academic schedule makes it easier. But ease is not the answer. The hours of services are not so difficult to plan around.

Friends to whom I confided these thoughts either tried to convince me that merely by going I would get into the swing of things, or asked the same question I posed to myself, “Why bother?” This was a tough one. I wasn't sure. When I had these same thoughts about why I was saying Kaddish for my mother, I wrote to friends:

“In the end I concluded that as my mother was always there for me when she was alive (sometimes too much so) I would be there for her, fulfilling the obligation imposed on me centuries before either of us was born. And so, for her, and not for me, I went to shul and said Kaddish and prayed, if at all, that I could pray. There was another reason I went, even less rational than the first. Maybe, just maybe, if I continued this charade and did the coming and going, the standing and sitting, the bowing and swaying, maybe, just maybe when it was all over, she would be back, not dead, laughing with me, talking to me, scolding me for some faux pas I didn't know I'd committed. This was obviously a thought verging on idiocy and I was not blasphemous enough to pray for her to be alive again—but somewhere in the innermost, most primitive recesses of my mind, the thought (if it can be so dignified) lingered. Stupid, I know, but unshakable, nevertheless.”

I no longer held that idea this time, but the other day, a fellow sat in my accustomed seat, the one to which I went every service. He asked why that seat was so special to me. “How else will my father know that I’m here, unless I’m in my seat?” I replied, and then felt myself blushing at the absurdities that spew forth my unguarded mouth.

So, there I sat as the sun set on January 9 ending both Shabbat and my period of mourning, wondering. Wondering why I could not pray, wondering why I was going to miss this twice daily ritual—and I knew that I would. I’d miss the companionship of the others and their bonhomie; I'd miss the special feeling of standing to say Kaddish; I’d miss the forlorn hope; I’d miss the structure it created for my day; I’d miss my father and wouldn’t be doing anything for him again, twice a day as I had for those eleven months. The official period of mourning would be over, but not my personal sense of loss. The eleven months were obsessively too long, but emotionally they were much too short.

When the last time I rose to say that final Kaddish, then for my mother, I found that I couldn’t. My throat choked, tears streamed from my eyes, my knees suddenly felt unable to sustain my weight. I sat, sobbing, trying desperately to utter the magic words which would bring her back to life as she had been before her final illness, though I knew that that could not be. What really hurt was the realization that I could do no more for her. She was now officially completely beyond my futilely outstretched helping hand. That was embarrassing. My hope was that such histrionics would not be repeated, no tears, just a simple stand up, say the prayer and sit down. Over. And so it was. Done.