I used to write about loss as if it were a principle of the universe; inevitable, impartial, almost philosophical in its reach. Loss as something that moves through all of us, touching the trivial and the profound alike. A lost key. A lost marriage. A lost soul. But last night, my mother died. And suddenly, loss is no longer a concept I can stretch wide enough to contain everything. It has edges now. Texture. A body. Her death was expected; a natural part of the lifecycle, but dementia is a long goodbye, and “natural” doesn’t mean “neutral”. It still cuts deep. There we were, walking hand in hand at Christmastime. Lights strung across porches, air sharp enough to make breath visible. My scarf wrapped tightly around my neck, our boots crunching in the glistening snow, as I envision Santa and his reindeer gliding through the winter sky. We arrive at a live Nativity scene. Through a child’s eyes, I was in awe; the stillness, the soft glow, the quiet reverence that settled over everything. I hadn’t attached any religious meaning to it. It was just… beautiful, peaceful. I didn’t have the language then but knew I was standing inside something that didn’t quite belong to me, and yet, somehow, did. That ambiguity, the quiet collision of two worlds, has stayed with me. Both of my heritages are rich but they don’t easily fuse. Still, there was warmth then. A coziness. A kind of intactness I didn’t yet know how to name, or how to lose. And maybe that was the real magic: not choosing one world or the other, but standing in between, a little reverent, a little mischievous, heart open wide enough to hold both realities.

A conversion to Orthodox Judaism at the tender age of 13 altered the trajectory of my life in massive ways, abruptly severing multiple aspects of my relationship with my mother, with a well-meaning Bet Din encouraging me to separate from her. I converted less out of clarity or calling, but from the psyche of a child trying to locate something that felt like home. Like most facts that shape a life, conversion carries grief, confusion, and something harder to name. Nevertheless, my deeply spiritual mother met me in Judaism in the ways she could. Holiday greetings. Making sure I had kosher food when I visited.........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)