Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
“Let’s see how strong this little ‘rebellion’ is.” I walked to my son’s door and knocked. “I know you don’t feel like talking to me, but I wanted to let you know there’s pie in the kitchen.” I set up the plates and took out the pie, and was very happy to hear the creak of his door. – Anon Guest
Teenagers had to be the most misunderstood age grouping in the world. They were given all the responsibilities of adulthood but one - the responsibility to make their own decisions for themselves. They were expected to act like adults whilst simultaneously being treated like children. Worse, entire crowds of people were smothering them with conflicting instructions, escalating expectations, and endless insultations.
In a period where biology demanded they rest in order to grow and develop, society demanded that they work as if they were already fully grown. The response to science revealing that teenagers operated best later in the morning, that the human brain absorbed information in smaller bites… was to set earlier school hours and longer classes for more hours. Blend all of that with the growing awareness that the previous generation expected them all to fix the world that their elders wrecked… and the famous teen attitude was a natural consequence.
Attitude like the one that came slouching, slinking, resentfully glaring from his room to the kitchen counter stool. It was the sullen smile that broke at the sight of the garnish on the waiting slice of pie. A flag toothpick, bearing a stylised dove with an olive branch on a white field. The parley flag. I said, “I’m listening.”
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Those of you who follow my hub site blog will know that I’ve suffered a loss, recently. Well. The day after tomorrow is her funeral, and… it’s a seven-hour drive.
One day to go there, one day to say my farewells, one day to come back.
Then, I hope and pray, the return of business as usual. As close to ‘normal’ as someone like me can get.
Griffin said it best: Not all exits are equal. This one… this one was the least equal of them all.
So… I’ll only be blogging on my hub, I won’t be making stories, and y’all might not get a flash fanfiction today because my brain is literally everywhere today.
For those wondering how to respectfully mourn Mr. Nimoy in his own traditions, rather than using the Christian iconography that is so prevalent in our culture, and yet so incredibly inappropriate, this is how.
Jewish families “sit shiva” in respect for the dead for a period of seven days following a death. This is a time of mourning for the family, where they are visiting in their home by the community. It may be solemn, it may be a gathering of friends more akin to a wake at times, it may be wistful and nostalgic. This depends entirely on the family and on their friends.
My grandfather’s shiva was mostly calm and kind, with his friends telling stories of his youth and adulthood, many of which I had never heard before. Sitting shiva can be amazingly cathartic, as a way of passing through one stage of life into another with the support of your community and family around you.
Jewish language around death is also very different. We do not have a sense of heaven and hell in the same way as Christianity maintains. Most Jewish traditions accept a vague and nebulous afterlife of some form, that is unknowable until we arrive. There is no concept of “being saved.”
Close family members (single-step blood relations and spouses) will say the mourner’s prayer (kaddish) daily for the first eleven months following a death, and then once a year on the anniversary of the death (yartzheit) ever after. The prayer must be said with a minyan, a quorum of ten adults, which is one of the other functions of sitting shiva — community members make an effort to be present in the shiva house for that first week to make up the quorum for saying kaddish. Following that, those who are saying kaddish will attend a synagogue service, usually in the early morning, to say kaddish with a minyan.
Here is the kaddish prayer. Note that the language is not one of grief or mourning.
This seems primarily for family/friends— what’s appropriate for strangers? Especially for those who are of different cultural backgrounds?
If you want to do something tangible, the usual gesture is a donation to a charity supported by the deceased, in honour of the deceased, in increments of $18. (18, 36, etc.) Families will often release the names of a charity in the funeral announcement. Charity (tzedakah) is one of the three requirements in Judaism for righteousness. The number refers to the way that Hebrew numbers are written - in letters, each having an assigned value. The word for life, ‘chai’ has a numeric value of 18, and monetary gifts are usually given in multiples of chai. (“How much did they give you for your bat mitzvah?” “Sweet! Five-chai.”)
Members of the family’s community, friends or not, have an obligation to make sure they can make a minyan at the shiva house.
For fans, be conscious of Mr. Nimoy’s beliefs. Instead of fan art showing flowers, since we don’t do that, have Kirk leaving a pebble at Spock’s grave. Draw the crew sitting shiva. Use lines from the Kaddish, the Shmah or the Yiskor prayer for gif sets rather than Christian poetry or hymns.
