After she died

After she died or should I say passed.   "Died" seems so rude.   Sometimes people will stop me after I've said "died." and they'll say, "passed, Andy, after she passed."

Anyway, after she passed I tried to hold on to her.  I tried to hold on to her "living".  I wanted her to still be alive.  I burned the Yarhtziet candle during Shiva and I remember watching it on the last night, the seventh night, when I thought it would burn out.  I stayed up watching and waiting.  I wanted to see it burn out.  I wanted to be with her until the last little bit of wick burned white then orange and then faded into a wisp of smoke.  I watched and I waited.  But no.

I was in the house when she died. . . . I mean passed, but I was not with her.  I probably already wrote about this in some previous post.  Anyway I was busy looking for her prayer shawl or tallit.  I found it.  As I was finding it, my friend Tara came into the bedroom where I had found it and told me to sit down.

The last little bit of burning light that was Wendy's life had turned into a tendril of smoke.  The rope of smoke rose into the air, then frayed into light threads.  And then the threads disappeared into the into a darkening December late afternoon.

I started buying "7 day" candles after that.