Sunday, January 20, 2019

Missing Prayers

Many things have changed since my father died. No more visits. No more phone calls. No more meals together. No more talks.

This absence is reflected in words now missing in two of my daily prayers. The amidah or standing prayer, also known as the Shemona Esrey, is a compilation of nineteen blessings. The first three are considered blessings of praise, the last three blessings of thanksgiving, and the middle thirteen blessings of petition. The fifth of these petitionary blessings asks for healing from God, the true and compassionate healer:
A person reciting this blessing in private prayer can add his or her own request (indicated in purple) for the healing of body and soul of a particular person. (see https://www.ou.org/torah/tefillah/shemoneh-esrei/shemoneh_esrei_8/). For about the last ten weeks of my father's life, as the seriousness of his illness became clearer, I added these words to my daily prayers. (Of course, I know the limited efficacy of doing so, having prayed for my mother and other relatives and friends before they died.)

I recited these words in my afternoon prayer about an hour before my father died. Then, for a few days, I didn't pray at all because I was an onen (עונן), the time between death and burial, during which I was exempt from positive commandments, including prayer. After the funeral, I resumed praying. When I came to the prayer for healing, just at the point when I would add the petition on behalf of my father, I paused slightly. My first inclination was to say it, since it had become part of my prayer routine. I then continued without saying it, noting as well as mourning its absence. No matter how ill your loved one becomes, you still pray for their recovery, for some kind of healing, if not in body then in soul. Death took away not only my father, but also my prayer for him.

After you eat a meal, you recite the Grace After Meals, Birkat Ha'mazon (ברכת המזון). Toward the end, there is a section called ha'rachaman during which various verses of a petitionary nature are recited. In the last of these, you add a prayer for your family, beginning with your parents:
The prayer reads: May the One who grants mercy bless my father, my teacher . . . ." My father was truly my teacher. After the first meal I had while siting shiva, I recited the Birkat Ha'mazon. Then I got to these words. I could no longer bless my father. When my mother was alive, I asked for blessings for both her and my father. After she died, I asked for a blessing upon my father. Now I can ask for neither. My family no longer includes parents.

I continue to see these words when I pray and when I recite the Grace After Meals. I see them and I skip them. They no longer apply to me. But they remind me that once I had parents, people who I loved, and then once I had parents who became ill, and then both of them died and no so I can no longer pray for them or bless them. I can recite kaddish for them. I can pray for their souls. I can also pray for myself. I do.

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