Dad

The phone rang at 6:15 am. My sister-in-law was on the phone to tell me my dad had died overnight in Montreal. I'm sitting here journalling/blogging. It's so therapeutic. I've gone to work only to make phone calls and e-mails to friends and relatives. I'm not functioning and everything I do is in very slow motion but that's understandable. Funny how I had been thinking about him lately - even in past posts. He was almost 93 and had been depressed and in pain in an old age home in Montreal, where my sister took good care of him. He was born in Austria and left 3 months after Hitler raided the country. His escape was miraculous and he vowed if he ever got out of there alive, he'd become a servant of God, which he was. When I was in my teens, living with him was truly awful - we only got to really appreciate and respect each other when I was in my early 20s. He spoiled me as I was his youngest. His body is being flown to Israel tomorrow and the funeral will be then. Then I begin 7 days of mourning called "shiva," when a person in mourning doesn't go to work, but receives visitors for condolence calls. These 7 days will be very reflective, my siblings will be together, we will talk about dad, laugh about him, cry over him, etc.

My kids all rallied around me this morning. Even the Criminal one sat down like an adult and told me he was a righteous man because he died in his sleep and God takes righteous people while they're sleeping. Then she walked with me to the store to get the morning's groceries. I don't remember the last time she did that.