For years, Mom told us that she wanted as small a funeral as possible — just us, the Rabbi, and as few other people as necessary to have a minyan so that we could recite the Kaddish. And every time she said it, we always told her that we were going to ignore that particular wish.

We did.

Mom’s funeral was this afternoon. We would have had enough people for a minyan just between the immediate family and the Rabbi, but there were more than a hundred people there.

Of course the family was there — and Mom’s neighbors and friends from Carriage Hill and elsewhere in Richmond — and her colleagues from Ethyl — and my brother’s friends and colleagues and neighbors — and even some childhood friends of my brother’s and mine. There were friends and relatives I see on most visits, people I hadn’t seen for years, and people I met for the first time today. And I’m sure there were people I didn’t meet at all.

The service itself was short; the Rabbi’s hesped was on target (he said it was due to the wonderful material my brother and I gave him), and two of Mom’s grandchildren added their own remembrances.

Then it was time to actually bury Mom. I put the first shovel of dirt into the grave, followed by my brother.

It wasn’t until we recited the Mourner’s Kaddish that I started crying. I’ve said the Kaddish before, of course; in fact, it’s the custom at Shir Hadash for the whole congregation to join the mourners in the recitation, so I say it nearly every week. And sometimes, I’ve said it for my uncle or my grandfather on the occasion of their Yarzheit. But this time, I wasn’t just saying the Kaddish as part of the congregation or as a comforter — this time, I was a principal mourner, and now I’m obligated to say the Kaddish for Mom for the rest of my life (though, of course, not every day of the rest of my life).

After the service, we stayed around for a few minutes and talked with people before returning to the house for the seudat ha-havra’ah. Not everyone came who’d been at the funeral, but we still had a houseful, and a good time was had by all (if you ignore the occasion). And then we had the first shiva minyan, and yet more talking — and eventually, everyone left.

I’ve taken off my suit jacket, but I’m still wearing the kriah ribbon, which I’ll continue to wear throughout shiva. And I have a shiva candle to bring home with me and light there (we have one burning here, of course).

So Mom, I’m glad we didn’t honor your wishes on the funeral; I know that the people who came out to honor you would have felt left out if we’d had a private ceremony, and that wouldn’t have been right. And all of your worries about making people come out on a lousy day? We couldn’t have asked for nicer weather — about 70 degrees, with just enough clouds to keep people from being dazzled. How did you arrange that?

I flew back to Richmond today, and so I spent most of the day in the travel bubble. I had my laptop, my carry-on, my headphones, my iPod…everything was normal.

But it wasn’t really normal. I didn’t play any music. I didn’t do any crosswords or sudokus. I didn’t read the airline magazine. I didn’t even read any fiction. Instead, I read Saying Kaddish, and I thought, and I remembered.

Something else that wasn’t usual: I’d often phone Mom from the plane to say “hi” — she always got a kick out of my calling from the plane, even though it was just a normal cell call. But today, my phone would have had to be very special indeed to have reached her.

Yes, this was a trip like any other trip…but not really.

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Now I’m at my brother’s house, after going over to my Mom’s to look for pictures of her to display tomorrow. While we were there, we started sorting through some of the stuff in her den — mostly books and photo albums, which were fairly easy to deal with (especially the ones that she’d labelled with a “D” for me or a “C” for my brother). I’ve put a pile of stuff on her bed to ship home later. I found a lot of my own stuff, too, such as a box full of 45 rpm records (in awful shape, I’m afraid) and many books, some of which I’m shipping home (I finally found my slide rule manual!).

Both of us were surprised how easy it was to deal with the stuff we were sorting. Of course, we didn’t actually throw anything away yet.

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For now, I’m still in the bubble of aninut.
But the funeral is tomorrow, and then it’ll be time to move out of the bubble and into the next phase.