Wednesday 01 December
Last Friday morning I woke up feeling pretty low, and I cried.
I cried because I felt like crying
I cried because I realized that Shani was gone
Maybe I cried because Chanukah started on Sunday and we were getting together as a family to spend a lovely afternoon together and laugh and smile and make some more memories that Shani will never have.
Maybe I cried because it was my birthday on Monday and I wouldn't get a hand made card with Shani's name on it in big scrawly writing or a birthday hug and a smile that melted your heart
Or maybe it was just the darkness of an early winter morning, cold and miserable, that set me off
But I cried
I don't cry often about Shani anymore
I sometimes feel low but more often than not I feel fine
There are songs that will set me off
Rule The World, I Can't Find My Way Home, Magnificent, Let it Go, anything by Big Time Rush
There are times that make me sad
saying the priestly blessing for Shani on Shabbat,
singing about doing miracles for the Shanis at Chanukah
when the Cohanim bless the community and I stand under my tallis prayer shawl without a child
praying for the future and asking for Shani's forgiveness for the past
plus the obvious ones
And there are reminders of Shani
a rainbow appearing
the beach at Hove
seeing a happy, or stubborn, five year old girl
GoGos (there are some lovely videos of Shani discussing the relative merits of different GoGos in her collection)
And maybe that's the way life is now - a balance of living and grieving, knowing that there will always be times of low and sad looking at a picture of Shani and missing her terribly, times of crying about the rent in my soul that will always be present, times even of despair when the gross unfairness of it all rains down and there seems to be no way out.
But there are more times of light and happiness, and sometimes that includes memories, anecdotes and stories of Shani, smiling at the way she used to smile, laughing at something that made her laugh, or just enjoying talking about her with loving friends and family.
I guess Shani's rainbow appears both to remind us of the wonderful girl she was and the wonderful but oh so short life she had, but also to pick us up when we're down and when it's time to do a little more living.
I might go and have a little cry first though.
-----
By the way, at our family Chanukah gathering, my wonderful and talented sister gave us all Shani boxes - ceramic boxes that replicated a gift that my niece had made for Shani when she was four:
a coloured-in wooden box with pasta and shells and beads stuck to the side, a present (my sister reminded us) of which Shani had said 'that's exactly what I wanted!'.
A magnificent moment when together as a family we all thought of and loved Shani
And I didn't cry.
Na'aseh Nes L'Shoshanim
