6.30.24
Yesterday, I helped bury my cousin, Abby Helene Rosenstein, who ended her life on Friday, June 28, 2024. I sat with my family in a graveyard in the suburbs of Chicago, where I had been 3 times before, once to bury my grandma Carole in 2009, my great grandmother Doris in 2014, and again to visit the site a few years ago.
I sat under the shade of a tent, behind my cousins and my Aunt and Uncle— Abby’s immediate family. I looked around, to my family, strangely grateful that we were all together again. Rabbi Steve began to speak of Abby, who he knew well, and recounted a story by Rabbi Harold Kushner:
“I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sand castle by the water’s edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle.
All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.”
In 2017, Abby moved in with my parents in Baltimore. Around that time, I lost my mom, Tyla, to suicide. I came home to Baltimore from Philly and decided that I was going to drive across the country to Alaska. I bought a van and for three months I built it out so I could live in it while on the road. Every day, Abby helped plan, cut wood, measure, carry, stain, paint, and keep me company. Born 73 days apart, Abby and I have always shared a special bond, and that summer 7 years ago deepened it even more. Abby could see my broken heart. She knew how to be there for me without saying a word. We were both struggling so much, both grasping for a sign that would pull us towards something. We were living in the uncertainty of what would happen next, both unsure of what a future could look like.
Abby carried such a deep pain. A profound empathy and sensitivity to all the suffering in the world. Yesterday, I was reminded of her blog she kept while serving in the Peace Corps in Senegal. Abby wrote, “If you’ve ever been in love, you know the fight you’ll put up to keep your loved ones close. You hold them in a special light, where your normal rules of judgement don’t quite apply. You dismiss their flaws and forgive their mistakes with ease. You want to be wrapped in their arms, even if you’re crying in anger because of them. The fight you put up when you’re in love is unmatched. And when the going gets tough, you don’t just walk away.”
As my Uncle David spoke at the funeral, Abby’s niece, my 3-month old cousin Ella stared at me over her mom’s shoulder. How could joy cohabit such a painful space? Perhaps it has always been hiding in the seams of darkness. Abby was buried with a dozen roses, a packet of dirt from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, a sea shell that I brought her from Cape Cod and a rock that I found on a beach in Alaska, a token of a dream she helped me make true. She was also buried with a contract that she and her dad made in 1999, promising that they would be best friends forever, signed by both. Friends and family committed the only mitzvah you cannot do for yourself, to bury the one you love, and I felt her soul set free, guided by my great grandparents, grandparents, and Uncle Mark, who’s life was taken too early at the age of 18. Abby wasn’t alone, and neither were we. The tide had come up and the sand castle had returned to its parts.
You are such a gift