Zichrona Livracha – May Her Memory Be a Blessing

Friends and Family,

My mom passed away peacefully around 1am last night/this morning, with my dad by her side and holding her hand. Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet / Blessed is the True Judge.

Funeral and Shiva Details

I will share more in a moment, but first: Click here for a google doc with all the funeral and shiva details, which you are welcome to share with people who knew my mom. That google doc will be updated continually and will soon include zoom info and day-of contact numbers. Key things to know:

• Funeral –
  • When: Monday, 12:30pm
  • Where:
    • In-Person: Plaza Chapel on 91st and Amsterdam
    • Online Live Stream: Click here for the link.
• Hybrid Shiva on Monday
  • When: 6-9pm, services at 7pm
  • Where:
    • In-Person: West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave., 69th Street
    • Zoom: Click here for zoom link.
• In-Person Shiva Tuesday-Wednesday
  • When: 5-8pm with services at 6pm
  • Where: Bograd Klein House, 165 West End Ave, Apt. 3R, New York, NY, 10023.
    • The gathering will be inside and mask-optional-but encouraged when not eating. For anyone concerned about unmasking indoors, there will be some space for people to eat outdoors on our porch.
• In-Person Shiva Thursday
  • When: Thursday, 6-9pm, services at 7pm
  • Where: Naomi and Ed Robbins, 49 Graphite Dr., Woodland Park, NJ, 07424
• Zoom Shiva
  • When: Friday, 12-1pm for friends and family,
  • Where: Zoom link: bit.ly/zoomhbograd
• Havdalah –> Shiva Gathering, 6pm end of Shabbat gathering, 7:45pm Havdalah, 8pm Shiva services, 165 West End Ave., Apt. 3R, but hopefully in the backyard behind the building for COVID safety.
• Gatherings for Margie – TBD post-Rosh Hashanah, in Boston and on Zoom
• Kulanu Memorial on Zoom – TBD, in a few weeks.

Saying Goodbye

Jeremy and the kids arrived around 5pm, as did my Aunt Naomi (my mom’s sister) and my Uncle Eddie. Jeremy, Aunt Naomi, my dad, and I each took time to say goodbye to my mom. We also had Uriel and Raziel call me from down the hall, and say goodbye to my mom on speaker phone. I guided the kids to find ways to say their versions of thank you, I’m sorry, I forgive you, and I love you, as I’ve been taught through my chaplaincy training. My favorite part was when Uriel said, “Grandma, I’m sorry for anything I have done to hurt you. I know that sometimes I have paid more attention to Papa than to you because he is so silly, and I am so sorry if that hurt your feelings. But I have always loved you too and I always will.” Raziel chimed in, “Amen!”

After the goodbyes, my dad and I stayed while the nurses removed my mom’s breathing tube. My dad and I then sang to my mom and cried together, before returning to our sweet Shabbat dinner down the hall.

Final Blessings

When it came time to bless the children, my dad and I realized that this was my last chance for my parents to bless me together, a ritual they have barely ever missed in my entire life. Whether I’ve been in Israel, India, Peru, Ghana, or traveling the US for my organizing, or whether my parents were home or traveling the globe, we always make sure to find a phone to call and connect for this ritual. So after Jeremy and I blessed our kids and we finished the Shabbat prayers, my dad and I went back to my mom’s bedside. There, I placed my mom’s limp hand on my head and my dad put his hands on hers, and my dad blessed me in my mom’s presence one last time.

After they blessed me, we both held her hands, and we sang the vidui, which is traditionally said at a person’s deathbed. Then I sang her the priestly blessing, using the haunting High Holiday melody for “duchaning,” pouring my heart out singing the niggun (wordless melody part) through my tears. Though I did not fully realize it, I think I was singing very loudly, because when we came out, the ultra-orthodox people in the room next door said they had heard our prayer and hoped God had too. They then invited us into their relatives room to pray with us and wish us good shabbos. Even though I often don’t feel so connected with ultra-orthodox people, there was something really beautiful about knowing that we, the inheritors of the same tradition, share enough common experience to come together across our differences to love and support one another in our hardest times. I can’t help but think that my mom was bringing people together in community even in her last moments.

Leaving the Hospital

My dad and I went back to our Shabbat dinner, where we enjoyed the really delicious food prepared by the Satmar chassidim, who apparently just make and donate huge amounts of kosher food to all the hospitals in the area. At the end, Shoshana and Emunah said goodbye to my mom, and then my dad walked them and everyone else out before returning to spend the night in my mom’s room. Once people had left, I stayed another half hour holding my mom’s hand, laying my head on my mom, and crying. Even though the nurses said my mom would probably take several days to pass and encouraged us to go home, I knew this could be goodbye, and struggled to pull myself away.

My Mourning Pilgrimage Through the City

When I finally did leave, and my dad returned to my mom’s side, I spent two hours walking home in a sort of pilgrimage of weeping. Everywhere I went, I thought of new sad things and would cry anew, like the fact that my mom wouldn’t be around to edit my sermons, that she wouldn’t be at my kids’ milestones, that we wouldn’t dance together again, and that she wouldn’t be there to be proud of me in my triumphs or sing our special “You’re a Good Girl, You Are” song when I mess up and feel terrible. I am usually unable to cry in public, and was thankful for my mask and the loud city crowds, which allowed me to be fully immersed in my own experience of grieving and also to feel like part of the fabric of the city.

End of Life

My dad called at 1am to say that after he had sat with her, holding her hand, alternately talking to her and crying, her breathing began to slow down a lot. The nurses came in, and a few moments later she was gone. Of course, we are heartbroken to see her go, but it also felt like an act of mercy for all of us not to have to prolong her dying.

My dad stayed another hour to be with my mom, and then rode along with the hearse to bring my mom’s body to the funeral home. As a testament to the exceptional Susan Schorr and my parents loving community, by the time he got there, their friend Marion Mackles was already there for shmirah, the ritual guarding and accompaniment of a body between death and burial. Susan is organizing people in shifts to do this mitzvah, and if you want to sign up, please contact her at Susan Schorr srschorr@aol.com.

Held by Community and Family

My dad came home around 4:30am, and has been alternating between sleeping and being showered with love ever since. He, Raziel, and I came for the end of services at West End Synagogue, and I was moved to witness how many of the people in the congregation seemed to share our heartbreak. In her introduction to Kaddish, Rabbi Emily took time to remember my mom and to talk about how the whole community was feeling pain and shock at her loss and feeling grateful for the ways that she had welcomed and been kind to so many people in the community. As I looked around, I realized that Rabbi Emily, and the cantor, and maybe half the people there all seemed to be crying, too.

I have sometimes thought about how grief can be deeply isolating, because the mourners are experiencing feelings so different and so much more intense than the rest of the people around them. It is still, of course, different and more intense for her closest people, but it feels really comforting to be in family and community where people don’t only feel bad FOR us, but also WITH us, because they know what a special and inspiring person my mom was.

After synagogue we were grateful for visits from my dad’s sister Aunt Evelyn and her partner Vince, my cousins Stephen and Andrea, and my Aunt Naomi and Uncle Eddy. Our phones have also been ringing and buzzing off the hook with messages of love and condolences.

How to Reach Us

FYI, my mom set up our home phone to forward to her cell phone, now that we have lost our resident technology expert, we have no idea how to fix it. So rather than leaving messages, better to comment here or write to my dad at kenneth.jay.klein@gmail.com and/or margieklein1@gmail.com. Once I have it, I will add a contact number on the funeral and shiva google doc in case people need help finding where to go, etc. (Also, if you know how to fix call-forwarding from a wired phone connected through RCN, let us know!)

Support for the Long-Haul

We hope to see you in the coming week for the funeral and shiva in person or on zoom. Whether or not you can join, know that we will still be grieving even after shiva ends. Hopefully he will come visit family a bunch in Boston and Charlotte, but when he is NYC, please help surround my dad with love and community in the coming months. I imagine my mother piping in here that my dad will need support in making actual social plans and in procuring and eating healthy meals that include vegetables and protein, since she was the social and nutritional planner in chief of the two of them. If you are not sure how, please attempt channel my mom’s signature indefatigability. 🙂

Thank you again for all your support, and for surrounding my family with love, family, and community now and always.

Much love,

Margie

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