My mother died six years and one day ago, on the day before Rosh Hashana Eve. The rabbi who conducted her funeral explained that my mom had chosen a very special day on which to rid herself of this world’s vanities: the death of one who departs on this particular day is known as a “death of the righteous,” and according to Jewish law, there is no obligation to sit shiva for them.
My mother was the most amazing, stirring person I’ve ever met: she was clever, original, and fearless. Erudite, beautiful, multi-talented, generous, hardworking, and fearless. (Yes, my mother was so extremely brave that I have to mention it at least twice.) It’s not that she wasn’t also kind and positive and eager to help anyone in need, and yet…“righteous” would not be the first adjective I’d use to describe her.
Either way, one thing’s for sure: if there is a God, he went a long way toward accommodating my mother when she died. Mom once explained to me that shiva, by definition, is a dream come true for nudniks: the mourners’ door is always open, and the entire family is trapped in the living room like sitting ducks. Shiva, as per my mother, is the finest hour of all those jabbering pests whom we spend our lives avoiding. With the bereaved at their weakest and most vulnerable, these people finally get their chance to swoop down, offer solace, and proceed to bore their captive audience to tears.
As a result of my mother’s impeccable timing, while my siblings and I sat around reminiscing about this incredible person, a woman blessed with the energy, passion and curiosity of a four-year-old and the life wisdom of a thousand-year-old, no one turned up to bug us. Both because we deadbolted the front door, and because none of the neighbors actually knew she’d died. The days we spent together after our mother died were extraordinary, intimate, and will stay with me forever. And I’m convinced they were also meaningful for Mom, because when she looked down at us from somewhere up above, she didn’t have to see even a single nudnik retelling a boring anecdote or leaving crumbs on her favorite armchair.
Whether my mother was a righteous soul or not—that’s for the heavenly court to decide. But what’s very clear is that, in her death as in her life, Mom did everything just the way she wanted to.
I only ever heard this story once. My parents had just come home from a wedding, and my mother was completely drunk. If she’d had one fewer drinks that night, I probably wouldn’t be able to share this story with you. It’s a little hazy in my imagination, but in the story, my grandmother holds my mom’s little hand while carrying Mom’s baby brother, and the three of them race up the stairs in their building. Mom can hear the footsteps of the people chasing them. When they get to the roof, my grandmother tells Mom to run as fast as she can and jump onto the adjacent rooftop, which is slightly lower. “Don’t be scared,” she says, “you can do it.” Mom waits, expecting her mother to say, “And I’ll be right behind you,” but she just stands there, out of breath from the run. “When will I see you again?” my mother asks, and her mother bends over so that their faces are very close, and says, “You’re going to run as fast as you can, and then jump as far as you can, and as soon as you land you’re going to keep running and not stop until you get to Daddy. After that, you will grow up into a woman, and you will meet a man and fall in love, and start a family with him, and in the end you’ll grow old and die. And right after you die, go up to the first angel you see and tell him: I’m going to see my mom. And he’ll know, because I’ll talk to him before you get there, and he’ll bring you to me.”
This is not where the story ends. After my mom jumped onto the other roof, she did not run as fast as she could, the way her mother had instructed her. Instead, she hid and watched the Nazi soldiers kill her mother and shatter her little brother’s head against a brick wall.
When she told me this, I could feel the heavy guilt engulfing her. But I also sensed how proud she was of her mother, who even in the last moments of her life refused to lie to her daughter. Forty-seven years after she told me the story that evening, my mother died. And the last words she said were, “I’m going to see my mom.”
