The Solace Of Lost <i>Siddurim</i>,Karen Singer Avrech

Since my son, Ariel Avrech, z"l, died, much of my waking and sleeping life - I dream of him often - is taken up with assembling images of him. Ariel was niftar almost four years ago, but I have experienced what I've come to call "post-traumatic loss syndrome." These are stages of mourning, but they are more complex and baffling than the standard ones put forth in the research I've read.

I have wrestled with shadows of faded memories, endured frustrating attempts to reclaim my bond with Ariel. I've had to work on evoking a feeling that used to be spontaneous and as natural as breathing. I know as a psychologist that there are reasons for this amnesia-like state, this sense of removal. I could not go on in my life if I felt the impact of the loss all at once.

I've told others that I now understand, for the first time, why survivors of the Holocaust could not talk of their experiences until fifty years had passed. They had to repress the horror. They had no choice but to block out the feelings of loss while building their own lives, while raising their children.

If they revived these memories earlier, they would have been paralyzed. They had to block out the trauma, compartmentalize the raw feelings into a deep hidden corner of their brain. They had to, or they would shrivel up from the pain.

They could only unfreeze, though subconsciously, these memories once they knew their work had been accomplished, their fortunes made, and they were assured that their children were building families of their own.

The paradox is that as time passes, the piercing sense of my own loss is mounting. My memories are returning and my psyche is allowing me to remember the real Ariel, the authentic Ariel, the child, the teenager, the almost-man, not some abstract Ariel that got me through his grim illness and tragic death. The defenses are melting, and the relief of feeling the immediacy of Ariel's presence in his absence is taking hold.

I have flashbacks now to his early years. The other day I vividly saw him as a two year old, in a red fleece jacket, rosy-cheeked in the New York winter, head covered in his navy wool hat.

I see him standing in his room as a twenty year old, intent on organizing, once and for all, his voluminous library, an inspiration that hit him every now and then. He took pleasure in ordering his immense collection of literature and seforim - from the Maharal to Moby Dick.

Images are returning, and tears are falling from my eyes at the oddest moments. Along with the grieving, one seeks messages. There must be some meaning, some ongoing connection - a small miracle that gives solace. I like to tell myself that I was granted one such message recently.

Ariel fought a courageous battle against cancer that began when he was fourteen. He lived cancer-free for five years, graduating as the valedictorian of Yeshiva Gedolah High School of Los Angeles. He went on to study at Baltimore's Ner Yisroel for three years.

A devastating delayed side effect of the brutal chemotherapy caught us all by surprise. Ariel needed a lung transplant. During the months he patiently waited for the organ, my eldest daughter was learning in a seminary in Israel, Michlelet Mivaseret Yerushalayim. It was a hard decision for the family, but we felt she should be allowed to have as normal a life as possible.

When my daughter returned, she gave me a lovely leather siddur with an inscription thanking me for the privilege of that special year in Israel. She wrote how grateful she was for the experience, acknowledging that she knew how hard the year had been for us.

Five years later, my younger daughter is now attending the same seminary. In November, my husband and I visited her. In Yerushalayim, all roads lead to the Kotel, so I took my siddur with me each morning, thinking I might wind up there. I know it dropped out of my bag in the taxi from the hotel to her school. I called the taxi company three times. Each time they rudely told me, "We told you that we did not find any siddur!"

Finally, I gave up. The siddur was lost.

I loved that siddur with the special inscription.

Two months later, on a trip to my newly married eldest daughter's home in Teaneck, New Jersey, I asked her for a siddur for Shacharis since I no longer had my own traveling siddur. She gave me one that felt very comfortable in my hand.

"This feels familiar," I said. I looked for an inscription to see where it came from, to whom it belonged.

What a surprise - it was mine. It was a siddur given to me eighteen years ago by my father, Rabbi Philip Harris Singer, zt"l, upon the birth of my youngest daughter - the daughter who is now in Michlelet Mivaseret Yerushalayim.

I had forgotten all about it. It was inscribed by my father with a poem in Hebrew he had composed for the occasion.

My father died this past year, so I was thrilled to rediscover this siddur.

I prayed.

As I turned the pages, I noticed that some of the prayers had penciled annotations in the margins. For example, the paragraphs of the Shema were given names: Chesed, Din, Tiferet.

The phrase in Chapter 30 of Tehillim, "m'yordi bor," which introducesPesukai D'zimrah, was denoted as referring to Yosef,and the "histarta panecha" to Purim. Someone had cleverly penciled in the word "Mayhem" in the "Asher Yatzar" as a play on the words "im yipatach ached mahem."

The handwriting was unmistakably Ariel's!

I began to cry. Ariel's comments were interspersed throughout the siddur. I don't know if he used the siddur in a class, or just made his own insertions.

The siddur I had lost in Israel led me to the siddur I was meant to find. The daughter who had originally given me the siddur I lost had now given me another siddur to take its place. This new gift came from the two people in my life who were no longer alive to speak to me: my father and my son.

A small miracle that brings some solace where comfort is rare.

It is most appropriate that we speak of small miracles at this time of Purim, the time of hidden miracles, of nisim nistorim. It is also the time of Ariel's bar mitzvah, for he was bar mitzvah on Shabbat HaChodesh. We pray that his neshomah, and the neshomah of my father, Rabbi Philip Harris Singer, of blessed memory, should have aliyahs in Gan Eden Shel Maalah.

Karen Singer Avrech, Ph.D., is a psychologist living in Los Angeles. Her husband, Robert J. Avrech is an Emmy-award winning Hollywood screenwriter and novelist. Karen and Robert's blog, Seraphic Secret, can be found at seraphicpress.com. Copies of "The Book of Ariel" are available through the website.

Read Comments (0)

The Solace Of Lost <i>Siddurim</i> , Karen Singer Avrech