in memoriam family affair

In Memoriam: A Family Affair

We drove up this morning, unusually for a Sunday, from Laguna Beach to

Los Angeles for a family gathering to mark the recent death Ellie's

Aunt Sylvia, of one of our elders--one of the last, be it said, since

we are rapidly becoming them ourselves. We have seen our elders, to

paraphrase that famous, overused saying, and they are us.

The memorial was a beautiful and moving moment. I suspect that many of

us have experienced those events where, instead of a funeral, we are

invited to "celebrate the life" of the recently departed. In all the

merriment of getting together and "remembering the good things," the

fact of death is frequently--pardon the phrase--passed over, perhaps

because that is the hard part, the part we don't much want to look at.

Thanks to the thoughtful preparations of Ellie's cousins, Aunt

Sylvia's memorial certainly gave us the opportunity to remember her,

and to celebrate the fact that she had touched so many lives. But it

was also appropriately serious and reflective.

There was a rabbi on hand to lead the proceedings, which were called

to order promptly and captured everyone's attention. The rabbi spoke

quietly and with appropriate gravity about the inevitable cycle of

life and death--by wonderful happenstance, Sylvia's

great-granddaughter had arrived in this world only hours before her

own departure, and was on hand to contrast her lovely presence with

Sylvia's poignant absence.

The rabbi then read a couple of beautiful, familiar passages from

Ecclesiastes and the Psalms ("Yea, though I walk through the valley of

the shadow of death...") before making space for family members and

friends to add their own words of remembrance, which they did with

loving grace and humor; and the memorial part of the event ended with

the recitation of the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer of mourning.

Then, only after this moving and respectful tribute to the person we

had come to honor, there was food and drink and conversation, and

catching up with those we had not seen for too long a time, and

promises to remain in better touch than in the past. All in all, it

was a fitting farewell, one that did not too readily dispense with the

sadness but also celebrated the joy of a life lived long and well. We

should all wish for so warm a tribute, once we have followed Sylvia on

that journey into the unknown that awaits us after this body in which