Earlier tonight, I participated in my first shiva call, at least the first one I remember. It’s a much, much more “pleasant” experience than a wake. There are no strangely-painted motionless bodies in a casket to look at, for one thing.
My father’s girlfriend’s mother passed away on Saturday. The funeral was on Sunday, and tonight was the shiva call. It’s such an expedient process, no need to drag it out over a week. She was 89 years old and deep in dementia. From what I know of her, she had a full life. Some of her time growing up and living in Europe was spent on the run from Hitler and Stalin.
When I first met her, we could have conversations. Subsequent times in the past several years, she would ramble aimlessly, switching incoherently from English to Polish to Russian to Yiddish, believing that she was somewhere else and that the people she was talking with were other people.