Searching for a Mustard Seed: One Young Widow's Unconventional Story
QWIP (Quality Words in Print) Books, Costa Mesa, CA, 2003
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Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award ('IPPY')

Excerpts:

The night Robert died, there were about 15 people in the ICU. But no one could find Robert's mala, the bodhi beads he'd worn on his wrist for 14 years...
'Does anyone have a mala?' Jitsudo-sensei asked, and like a scene in a western where everyone pulls a gun from his pocket, a half-dozen people pulled beads off their wrists, out of handbags, off their necks. Jitsudo wrapped a strand around Robert's wrist.
*****

Different periods of mourning were allocated to me by the Jewish and Buddhist religions. I decided to observe shiva, the traditional eight days of Jewish mourning. During that time, I would not go back to work, but instead stay in my house and receive condolence calls. I would not act like a hostess, serving guests, but rather let them serve me as the bereaved.
Isabel had tried to go back to school the day of Robert's cremation, but had soon called sobbing, needing to come home.
"My brain doesn't work," she cried.
I felt much the same way.
*****

I also now had my kaddish minyan. A woman, who was a para-rabbinic at the synagogue, organized ten Jews to show up at my house every afternoon... But despite best efforts, we were often short several people. However, there were usually a few lackadaisical Jews, lurking about my kitchen, who would come into the living room and be counted.
A journalist friend, who had been very fond of Robert, came regularly, saying, "All this Buddhism felt too cold. I need some Judeo-Christianity."
But my back-neighbor Marie was the most faithful minyan member, despite being raised Catholic in Texas; she attended and prayed every day. In an unconventional move, she was counted as a full member.
Shiva lasts eight days, so it is always interrupted by the observance of Shabbos. It is forbidden to mourn on the Sabbath--Kaddish isn't said--and the mourner gets a tiny preview of a return to life, no matter how frightening.
*****
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*****
Our days dragged by with a sort of rhythm: work and school, a very simple dinner of noodles or stuffing, maybe chicken, broccoli, a video, then bed. She was still sleeping in bed with me, and by 8:30, I was ready for sleep, even a sleep wracked by nightmares and constant wakenings.
But the prospect of leaving the country was something to look forward to--We're going to Korea for Christmas--it sounded good, exotic, and enterprising.
I experienced an odd, guilty relief at only having to take care of Isabel and myself, not a sick and dying man. My role as caretaker had never been admitted between Robert and me, but it had been a grueling, at times terrifying, one...
Now Robert was dead, and as much as I didn't want to admit it, there was the potential for me to start taking care of myself. I tried to remember the much-touted stages of grief, but they didn't seem to apply in any linear fashion. I'd never had much denial, sad to say, because I could have used something to protect me from the shock. But it seemed as if nothing had protected me. Now I felt anger. Anger and a vague stirring of flirtatiousness. Anger, anger, anger, anger, anger, sex: Those were my stages of grief.
*****

Of course, I also wanted to read about widows. Back home, I checked out every book I could find on the topic in the public library, but found little that helped me. The average book was kindly, but much too generic....
I excitedly found one book by a woman who was preparing to swim the English Channel when she was suddenly widowed. Naively, I just assumed she'd go ahead and swim anyway. I was looking forward to her triumph when the book devolved into a mini-breakdown in her New York apartment instead. I was bitterly disappointed. I wanted her to swim.
*****

Two very familiar, if older, people came towards me, waving.
Richard's mother won my regard by saying immediately, "I am so sorry about your husband." It was a kind thing to say, as I was now practically engaged to the middle-aged son she so desperately wanted to see married.
*****

Robert had been dead for a year. The cycle of time came back towards autumn, October. New Mexico put on its fall colors of purple asters and yellow chamisa, brilliant earth foliage beneath a turquoise sky. It was time for another memorial service at the small temple on Cerro Gordo Park.
Robert's mother and sisters came in from the East Coast. They were still devastated, the look on their faces almost as raw as it had been a year before.
I, on the other hand, felt like a different person. I still experienced acute bouts of grief, but they were mixed with an interest in living, with joy at the company of Rich, Isabel, my friends, and the two, large, black cats that now came and went as they pleased. I wouldn't wear black to the memorial service, I decided, but settled on a dark blue, velvet skirt that was patched with designs in rich brocade. It felt right.
Isabel opted to stay home with Rich, much as she had avoided the service after her father's death by going out into the park with my father. She and Rich were negotiating with each other, turning into a parent-and-child pair. When he put his sugar bowl on the kitchen table and took ours off, she was upset.
"Isabel," Rich said, "I've moved a long way to a strange place where I don't feel at home yet. I need some of my own things out. Besides, my mother made this on a potter's wheel for me. Is this OK?"
She nodded, admiring the glaze. They were coming to a lasting accommodation with each other.
The Zen ceremony was a simple one. Jitsudo-sensei kindly came up from Albuquerque to lead it. Tom, Robert's close friend, assisted him in beating the traditional, wooden, fish-shaped drum and in holding up offerings of sticky rice to the spirit of the deceased.
The ceremony had a cold clean feeling like the splash of salt wave coming in off the north Atlantic. Robert felt truly gone. It didn't matter where or why. There was nothing I or anyone could do about it. But the fact of his death awoke us to life.
*****
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