Bereaved family teaches us power of community

At the funeral service, about 500 people sat shoulder to shoulder on the benches in the sanctuary. There were so many people that some stood on the sides. We watched, we hurt, and we somehow hoped to offer solace to the family sitting in the front row.

The worst had happened. A 13-year-old boy went skateboarding in his neighborhood after school. As he rode his board around a corner, the oncoming truck tried to stop but could not. The boy died later that day. On the day of their son’s funeral and for days afterward, the family did what often is difficult for so many of us. They embraced community. They let others see their pain, and reached out to people who could comfort.

The boy who died last week was a joyful, brilliant, complicated, athletic teen. He is the youngest of two boys in a family my husband has known for decades, a family that I too have grown to love. This is a family always willing to open its home and hearts to others. There is, as the rabbi said in the eulogy, no reason why this full-of-life boy died. I write about this bereaved family because they taught me and others something as their grief was just beginning. They taught us how not to be afraid to let others comfort at the worst possible time in our lives, how not to be afraid to cry hard and loud.

My husband and I sat through the funeral and shed tears for our friends and their surviving son, a 16-year-old. Later at their house, we offered hugs when they needed them, and just made ourselves present when they needed space. It is enough sometimes to just be there. Both my husband and I lost a close family member decades ago. My 23-year-old brother died in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel. My husband’s mother died of cancer.

My husband remembered how his family did let the community in when his mother died, though the community was mostly the colleagues of his mother at Brandeis University. I remembered how my family and I seemed to have no community to support us in the days – and of course, weeks – after my brother’s death. I had close friends in college who were there, but there was no larger community for my family. We were not members of a temple. My parents lived in a subdivision, and neighbors mostly dropped food off at the door rather than come in. Maybe, my mother has mused since, some people were afraid that death was catching. What was comforting, she said, was how her boss came into the house and just sat with my parents.

Last week, I witnessed the family’s pain, yet marveled at how they readily opened their house to their community, and how readily the community came into their home. Members of the caring committee from the family’s suburban Philadelphia temple set up food and drinks for guests – and the family. They assembled a grocery list. Neighbors hosted out-of-town friends and family in spare bedrooms. Visitors streamed in and out for the three days we were there. This was the power of community.

A few visitors hugged the bereaved family and said: “You will need us not just today, but weeks from now. We are here for you.” I urged the mother to please call on us and said we would check on them, too, as we hugged. She said not to worry. They planned to reach out. They did not want to go through this alone.

The family’s home likely will become eerily silent this week after shiva ends. Yet, I am hopeful for our friends and their ability to weather the days, weeks, months, and years to come. On one day, they may not cry. On another day, the tears may seem as if they will flow forever. My friends likely will hold each other, or do what they did in the days after the funeral. Reach out and pull toward them the close hug and awesome power of community.

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