Back to the graveyard

My first kibbutz had a tradition that every newly married couple would receive a statuette from the couple who last got married. I don't remember now what the statuette itself was, maybe some pagan symbol of fertility, but I do remember that it stayed with us for some time. Of course, in those days, a kibbutz wedding was a rare event, not like today when there are so many weddings and none are held on the kibbutz.

This tradition found its way into my mind yesterday when I attended the funeral of a kibbutz member, Uri (almost 90 years old); I was the last kibbutz member to be bereaved and here I was, passing the bereavement onto another family. There was a certain similarity between my father's condition and Uri's, who actually was hospitalised in the same hospital as my father, albeit a floor above. Both his wife and one of his daughters came to visit us during the mourning period and all of us recognised that there was no return from Uri's condition.

At the beginning of Uri's funeral, I felt some of the emotions that I had tried to repress during my father's funeral; I felt tears in my eyes. But unlike my father's funeral, eulogies came from the widow, from all four children, one grandchild, a few other kibbutz members and even a few songs sung by the family (who sing well but were accompanied by a slightly out of tune guitar). In other words, this was one of the l-o-n-g funerals that cause 'the audience' to lose interest and thus respect. I fully understand why the family members felt compelled to speak, but in such cases maybe it would be better to restrain some of the unconnected kibbutz members who like the sound of their own voice.

This was not my first visit back to the graveyard since my father's funeral, but actually my third this week! I went up on Monday to see whether the stone had been laid on the grave; it had not. Then again on Tuesday when I saw the the stone had indeed been laid.

One of the Jewish traditions regarding mourning is that male mourners do not shave until the stone is laid, 30 days after the funeral. I developed quite a full white beard in this time that most of the time did not bother me, but I found it annoying when wearing a mask, so it was with some relief that I shaved most of the beard off this morning. It still needs thinning and trimming but at least wearing a mask won't be so itchy.