Rabbi for a Day

Candy Schulman

Word Count 1190

The call wakes us at 6:30 AM. Caryl, my mother-in-law, has died in her sleep at age 102.5, which sounds more like a thermometer reading than a physical age. I’ve known her for five decades, but all she ever shared about her post-mortem preferences were cremation and burial in her in her family’s Queens plot. 

During her final three years in a Florida nursing home, my husband Steve and I FaceTimed from a computer in Manhattan twice a week. Sometimes she slumped down and all we could see was her nose and forehead. As soon as her first-born son’s face illuminated her screen, she always began with a surprised greeting, as if seeing him for the first time: “Steve! You look just like me! Same face! But…I’m older.” 

We’d laugh with her. 

 “How old am I?” she’d ask.

I’d remind her.

“How did I get to be that old?”

Her short-term memory was gone, but she always knew who we were. Our family nicknamed Caryl the cat who had more than nine lives. She kept falling like a baby learning to walk, then get up again and recover with resilience. Until the next time. It seemed like she might live as long as Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, who died this year at 116.

 *

Jewish people rush to bury their dead, usually within 24 hours—unless Sabbath interrupts the haste. Mourning begins immediately to help the bereaved avoid “dwelling in the valley of the shadow of death,” as Psalm 23 instructs. 

Before Caryl can move to a funeral home, we must wait for a signed death certificate by a Florida official. By then it’s Friday sundown, before Christmas weekend. We have to wait until the following week, as the crematorium is closed for four days. 

It’s illegal to use FedEx to transport Caryl’s ashes up north. Her ashes are “mailed” by USPS the following Thursday, guaranteeing she’ll be delivered by 6 PM Friday, in time for Sunday’s scheduled burial. The cemetery closes at 4 PM. I pray that her remains board an early flight with strong tailwinds. 

The cemetery recommends a rabbi. His wife answers the phone. “A mother is never old enough,” she sympathizes.

I’m stunned by an aphorism I should have realized decades ago, when my mother died at the age of 96 from Lewy Body Dementia. Suddenly I’m nervous about a tête-à-tête with a holy man. I never fast on Yom Kippur, I worry. Why am I confessing? The older I get, the more connected I feel to my heritage and traditions. 

The rabbi says, “I want to help you in the tower of grief.” His price is steep for ten minutes of blessing a stranger’s life. 

A meditation buddy connects me with the retired rabbi of New York’s largest Jewish LGBTQ congregation. It seems fitting, as Caryl’s brother-in-law was gay—a secret he kept from all of us. This rabbi is out of town and texts to see who’s around. Like in August, when all shrinks are away, during Christmas break the rabbis are out of town too. Where do they go?

I decide I’ll be the rabbi, pro bono. I’ve attended my share of funerals, hoping this gives me expertise to devise a memorial. Yet, assuming my new role feels daunting and otherworldly. 

 *

Just an hour before Friday night sundown, Caryl’s ashes arrive. Two days later, on Sunday, we drive from Manhattan to Queens, home to 29 cemeteries, five million graves and entombments—the most in all five boroughs. 

Steve slides the required certified check to a woman in a tiny office shielded by plexiglass. 

“We’re going to do a service first,” he explains as if it’s groundbreaking news.

She nods, unblinking. “After the grave is filled, you can just leave.”

Good to know.

“Is the cemetery full?” Steve inquires, suddenly concerned that we have no after-death plans, even though we’re in our seventies. Caryl’s family plot is full, where she will be buried with her parents and other relatives, but the woman responds that the cemetery itself is not full. 

“How much are plots?” Steve asks.

“Depends on location.”

Real estate is real estate. 

“Maybe I’ll inquire later,” says Steve.

Unlike the overbearing sorrow at my mother’s funeral 16 years ago, I have enough distance to preside with the poise I convey teaching my college classes—while posing as a rabbi and comforting my husband. I want to convey that when we’re young we feel immortal, but after losses of loved ones, we’re confronted with the fragility of life. We promise to give “meaning” to each day, but like broken New Year’s resolutions, this realization is difficult to retain. 

Our daughter is the tech producer, setting up a tripod for Steve’s iPhone. She dangles a mic around my neck. Sound check complete.

It takes 15 chilly minutes for everyone to get settled on FaceTime from New Jersey, Texas, Manhattan, and Caryl’s younger sister in Florida, age 93. 

Can you hear me?

Unmute yourself!

We can’t see your face!

Can you hear me now?

Sorry I’m late. Has the service started yet?

My daughter suggests, “Please mute yourselves.”

Take One.

Thirty seconds into the eulogy I’ve ghostwritten for Steve, his voice breaks. I dab his dripping nose with a tissue. I become his voiceover.

My eulogy’s penultimate line is: A mother is never old enough. Why didn’t I give the rabbi’s wife credit? I’ve counseled students against plagiarizing. Thou shalt not steal. Yet, I absolve myself (I am a makeshift rabbi, after all). Today, Caryl is never old enough to Steve. Someday I will not be old enough to my daughter.

“May Caryl’s memory be a blessing,” I conclude. Familiar phrases do comfort us. Steve doesn’t yet know that today’s tears, icicles on his cheeks, will thaw, and one day, finding a photo of his mother teaching him to ride a bike will make him smile.

It’s time for kaddish, the 13th century prayer, which never mentions the word “death.” I ask for a volunteer to recite the kaddish, as I only recall the first line. A cousin’s husband in Dallas delivers the familiar sing-song rhythms with a cantor’s grace.

Today, the foreign words feel so personal and soothing. Surprisingly, these rituals, phrases, and prayers guide us through—and beyond—grief. 

We take turns shoveling dirt into Caryl’s grave, which seems shockingly small. Here’s where I break down. The heaving in my chest feels like a panic attack combined with uncontrollable sobbing.  

Steve and I huddle with our daughter, arms locked, heads on each other’s shoulders. We mourn for the dead and for our own mortality.

Ushering Steve through his intense first stage of grief, I am more of a rabbi than I’ve thought. I reassure him that today’s oppressive sadness will abate, bit by bit. And flare up unexpectedly, sparked by the sight of something that reminds him of her. 

I lead us from kaddish to kiddush at a restaurant in Ridgewood. Steve orders eggs, and since Google is my Bible, I inform him that it symbolizes the cycle of life. 

In many religions, sympathy and love are shared through food. Steve orders chocolate pudding, his mother’s favorite.

Candy’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, The Cut, Longreads, Oldster, Brevity, among others. She is a creative writing professor at The New School in Greenwich Village and a private writing coach.