Where Do We Go When We Die? by Maureen Eich VanWalleghan

So I am dealing with a death in the family and wondering how to discuss this with my five year old daughter. My great aunt died yesterday. She and her husband were like a second set of grandparents for my daughter. Since my husband’s parents are dead, my husband had adopted my aunt and uncle as surrogate parents, doing things for them and often taking my daughter with him on his visits to their home.

My aunt was a very feisty gal. When I asked her what it was like to be married to someone for over 60 years she replied “It’s a lot of cooked meals.” Start doing the math and the number of meals is mind boggling. She was funny and fun. My daughter enjoyed her company. Hanging out at her home with my uncle and their two dogs, my aunt would always pull out little toys or pens and paper for my daughter to enjoy.

I really treasured my aunt. I think because she was not my mom we didn’t have the same emotional charge over issues and so it was easy to just relax around her. Generationally, she easily could have been a parent to my husband as she was 87 years old (I think.) I am going to miss her and so will my husband and daughter.

As I consider the upcoming conversation about death, I am trying to think of the questions my daughter will ask me like “Where do we go when we die?” When one has an obvious religious paradigm that governs their lives, answering the heaven question is clearly based on that religion. As a former Catholic, I just can’t speak to the big issues of life with the answers I grew up hearing. Both my husband and I fall more into a Native American ethic, though neither of us happens to be apart of any tribe. As a way to address our anti-religion stance I have started going to the Universal Unitarian church in town. In my conversations with my husband about this, I reminded him that we both had religions that we rebelled against, the least we can do for our daughter is to give her a structure for religion. And if there is something we disagree with at church then as a family we can discuss it.

A few years ago when my daughter was three years old, our dog was run over and had to be put down. We buried our wonderful dog at the lower lake by our home. My daughter got to see our dog just before she died and to touch her in death before we put our dog in the ground. My daughter asked a lot of questions, but three years old is not almost six years old. And a dog is not a person. But there it is: death is death.

So tomorrow on the drive over to see my uncle we will be talking about life and death. Today it will be more discussions between my husband and myself so that we are clear—as clear as anyone can be when faced with a loss—about the esoteric question that we all have: where do we go when we die. Figuring out how to explain what we believe to our daughter is definitely more difficult without religion.

Any Woman’s Holiday by Cyma Shapiro

I am Jewish. I will tell you a little story about our switching Jewish ‘houses,’ recently, all centered around our Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  However, I don’t think the religion or holiday even matters, here. I think it’s all about perception, reality, and the personal business of finding a home for one’s religion and spirituality.

We are Reform Jews. As such, we are ‘granted’ a relaxation of Jewish social norms and customs, religious practices and requirements.  In short, nearly anyone who is a Reform Jew can find some synagogue, somewhere, and some rabbi, who allows the practice of ___________.  Fill in the blank yourself.  If it is not harmful to someone, blasphemous, detrimental to one’s health or against the law, I think you can find someone in the Reform movement who might ok the behavior.

We belonged to a Reform synagogue.  It was comfortable, secure, and offered ease of dress, thought and worship practices.  We could attend services, have our children attend Sunday school, and then return back home and call it a day.  (In our case, we embraced additional practices during the week).

We were, however, alone.  When we stepped back, we realized that nearly no one associated with anyone else in the synagogue; there was little commonality among members; and almost no religious groups to join.  It was safe, comfortable and required little commitment .  But, it was not enough for us.

We began the arduous search for a new ‘home’ – one that offered safety, security, ease of dress, and community.  It was the community part that had been missing. Studying the many choices in our area, we decided to opt for a Conservative temple – more religious, more spiritual some might argue; and with many, many more requirements, both for ourselves and our children.  How could we do this? Land somewhere on one day, and land somewhere else with heightened rules, and much greater expectations and practices, the next?

We were truly scared. The practice of moving houses of worship was more traumatic than we expected; no longer were we simply finding a new house to hang our hats, or in our case, our yarmulkes.  We were seeking something that would help us reformulate our family and prioritize our religious needs. Already struggling with my Jewishness, I came with what they call “baggage” – years of indoctrinations, expectations and mismatches which I hadn’t fully reconciled. My husband had his own tsuris (Yiddish, meaning troubles) and my kids just didn’t want to attend Sunday School.  What would we do with all of those issues?

On the first day of attendance, we looked around us quickly, and began the (much longer) worship service. We spent the whole time looking around at what others were doing; others were wearing; and others were reciting. Only in this case, no one was looking at us which was a good thing. Everyone was immersed in their own practice(s), their own thoughts, their own prayers. We left, heartened that we seemed not to stick out like a sore thumb, and weren’t the worse for the experience, either.

Within two weeks, we were invited to a family-related party;  introduced to many other members; and within the shortest period of time, were made to feel ‘at home.’  When the holidays came and I surveyed the scene of women with their families, my long-held biases regarding dress, look and philosophies dropped swiftly away as I realized that we were all just women/mothers doing our job. Our children were trying to learn their religion; our families just trying to be good, perhaps righteous, religious and whole.

This experience has been ground-breaking.  It mimics my experience with new mothers. Slowly, the ‘new older mother’ moniker has slipped away in favor of just ‘motherhood,’ and I see that my desires reflect the desires of so many other women to just promulgate families and family unification, step into our own womanhood, and love and be love. It’s really that simple.

And so, at the beginning of the Jewish New Year, I welcome all of you to reflect on your current situation in life, and find some kernel of truth in my story which could also be yours.  For me,  it’s the story of coming of age. I hope you find new growth, with me.

On Celebrating Holidays - by Cara

I was quite saddened during this past Jewish holiday called Rosh Hashanah. And I anticipate many sad holidays to come. At least for a while.

I am not Jewish. My husband is. Before we got married, by husband requested that we raise our children in the Jewish faith. Not comfortable at that point to consider converting to Judaism, we elected to raise our child through what is known as Reform Judaism. In Reform Judaism, at least one parent must be of the Jewish faith. In more strict areas of Judaism, the mother of a child MUST be Jewish in order for the child to be considered Jewish. This is not the case in Reform Judaism, where only one parent, mother OR father has to be Jewish.

I chose to raise my child to be Jewish for several very important reasons. My first is that although I am a spiritual person, I do not have any direct connections with any particular faith, as my parents were not very religious. My feeling is that if a child is going to experience a religion, this child should be exposed to religious family gatherings, rituals and traditions on a fairly regular basis. I felt that although my husband was not terribly religious (and is even less so now), that at least there would be my husband’s family who would introduce and carry out these important customs for my child to eventually relate to and internalize.

We have been sending our son to religious school, at the Reform Temple we belong to, for going on three years now. Our son enjoys his religious classes and we can tell is learning, and retaining a fair amount of his studies. But now that my divorce proceedings are underway, I’m in between a rock and a hard place.

Since I wasn’t raised in the Jewish faith, I am hardly equipped to truly raise my child with the customs and traditions that become assimilated into a person if the religion is practiced routinely, beginning in childhood. I did take a 7-month Introduction to Judaism class along with a 3 month Beginning Hebrew class...still, I feel lost. My husband has practically no interest in celebrating the Jewish Holidays. In fact, he blew off the second day of Rosh Hashanah to go to the Jersey Shore with his friends. He is working on Yom Kippur, the most holy of all Jewish holidays. And he is planning to be at a convention the first 5 days of Chanukah. My husband’s family wants nothing to do with me, so there goes the family support for the traditions and customs. I am at a loss. I did not choose to do this alone. Had I ever thought I would be teaching religion to my child by myself, I would have at least chosen a religion who’s customs I am much more familiar with. But it is not fair to my son to suddenly redirect him towards a different religious path at this point.

Since my husband is choosing to disregard the holidays of his own religion, I felt that the minimum he could do would be to drop our son off at religious school, pick him up, and do our son’s religious homework with him. My Rabbi, a warm, sweet, loving woman, is going to help me learn more as my son and I go along. She wrote down family get-togethers and child focused events, such as helping to build a Sukkah (an outdoor dwelling where all meals are eaten and you can choose to sleep in the Sukkah, weather permitting, for 8 days. It is actually a celebration of the harvest season and typically is celebrated in the Fall.), as well as some Chanukah family events we can attend together.

It is somewhat comforting to know that several of the children in my son’s religious class have also been in one of his classes at his elementary school, so I am at least familiar with some of the parents at our Temple. Still, I feel overwhelmed and abandoned in yet another area of my son’s and my life. I chose to do this in the best interest for my child and with the understanding that I would have family support. Now, I have none of that, and I am resentful. I guess I just have to resolve that this is yet another area in my life where my son and I are going to plod through as best we can.

And, of course, it doesn’t help matters when my son loudly asked in Temple the other day, “Mommy, when is Christmas?”