Parashat Chayei Sarah: Midrash on Loss and Finding Support in our Spiritual Practices
1. This picture is my absolute favorite of my grandmother/جدتي with one of her grandchildren. I never met جدتي as she passed away before I was born, but through my spirituality I've felt a closeness with her I once thought impossible. I used to wonder where my inclination to help people tend to the spiritual grief of losing a pregnancy or baby came from, especially given my lifelong desire to Never have children. But I found out recently that my great grandmother suffered infertility issues, having only one child. Then my grandmother lost two babies shortly after their births. My draw to tend to the often broken, isolated, and deeply grieving spirits dealing with these losses feel like my way of helping my own ancestors heal. In this entry I want to look at grieving the lives of people close to us with the portion of Chayei Sarah, "the life of Sarah".
2. Chayei Sarah seemed to be named ironically to me at first read, to name a portion "the life of Sarah" and open it with her death felt off to me. I didn't understand how to find Sarah within these passages of Abraham and Issac building their lives after her death. I realized though, at the end of the portion, that there's a much deeper meaning at play here. The portion ends with Abraham, after re-marrying and having more children, being buried next to Sarah. It also says Issac finally began to find some healing and comfort after the loss of his mother with his marriage to Rebecca. Sarah didn't disappear from the passage; she is always present within the things her loved ones did. They honor her memory in their everyday lives, in the simple tasks we don't think much about and that don't get mentioned. It made me realize that here I was multiple millennia later still reading about and honoring Sarah's memory in my Torah study. Sarah is ever present within our prayers, within our annual reading of Torah; it's as if her spirit still laughs among the Jews.
I thought of my ancestors who I created an ancestral alter for that includes their jewelry passed down to me, old photographs, the Holy Qur'an, trinkets they collected, and a list of their names. I light a candle and pray to them each day, thanking them for their protection, love, guidance, grace, and wisdom. I think of their faces, I think of the stories my parents told me. My grandparents are all passed to the next life yet I feel closer to them than ever. I realized that whenever I cook a meal they taught my parents, whenever I pray, whenever I carry my hamsa trinket, whenever I buy their favorite flowers, whenever I learn something new about our culture, that they are ever present in my life. My very being is a celebration of the life of my ancestors and all it took to get me where I am each day. My life is a continuation of their story and I more than honored to be a part of it. Think of the loved ones in your life who have passed on, think about the ways they are always with your spirit. When you listen to their favorite song, when you drive past their childhood home, when you cry tears of missing them. Your life is a continuation of their love, your story a continued page where their chapter ends. They experience the world through your spirit, through your love, through your grief, through your healing, through your resilience and crashes. The dance of grief and love are done with their memory, and it's a dance that never ends.
So in honor of the beautiful name of this portion, I give my thoughts to my ancestors and their stories.
Chayei Donald, Chayei Massouda, Chayei Mohammad, Cheyei Marilyn, Cheyei Agela, Chayei Khadija, Cheyei Francis, Cheyei Raymond, Cheyei Amos, Cheyei Verda, Cheyei William
These are the lives of my loved ones, these are the lives that give breath to my own. I say a prayer of healing to anyone hurting and grieving the loss of a loved one.
