Am enjoying working my way through Rabbi Dayle Friedman's Jewish Wisdom for Growing Older, Finding Your Grit & Grace Beyond Midlife. Time & again, am reminded of my mother, Katharine (Kay to all) Reynolds Lockhart. Especially pages 9 & 10!
Rabbi Friedman's description of her late mother-in-law sounds so like Mom. Tried to paraphrase the section, but failed miserably. Instead, will share exactly what she writes:
My late mother-in-law, Miriam, had a very fruitful old age. She did not climb high mountains or work at a career. She did not travel the world. She did not write books or invent cures.
Rather, this amazing woman, who had survived the Warsaw Ghetto & multiple concentration camps before she came to the United States to build a new life & family, was virtually homebound for several years before she died at close to ninety. What she did in the words of the rabbi who gave her eulogy was "work the phone."
Miriam maintained a regular telephone conversation with a couple of dozen relatives and friends all over the country. When you spoke to Miriam, she genuinely wanted to hear about your life. She always had not only a kind word but a piercing insight... After speaking with Miriam, you saw more clearly or held more lightly whatever was burdening you.
The fruit that Miriam bore & boundlessly shared to her dying day was her wisdom.
Rabbi Dayle Friedman
I love this woman!
Rabbi Judah Loew, a 16th century sage, suggests that aging offers a unique opportunity:
As we age, we become wiser... as our physical facilities are weakened, our spiritual faculties gain strength, for we acquire the capacity of discernment - spiritual independence, or exalted intellect, which flows from the Holy One. In this way, (the elder) can grasp things that are utterly distinctive.
According to Rabbi Loew, certain capacities are heightened as we grow older. Our bodies may change & face limits, but our soul becomes unbounded.
How is it that we become wiser? Our ability to discern expands. We become able to see clearly, to make distinctions about what is really important, what matters most. We are no longer totally dominated by the perspective of other people & the culture at large. We can hold onto the perspective we have gained from our life experiences. We can forge our own unique insights.
Gaining wisdom is, according to Theodore Roszak, "what the elder mind seems especially empowered to do."
Zounds! That describes Mom to a T! Where Miriam survived the ghetto & concentration camps, Mom survived the early death of her father, emotional & even spiritual abuse from her mother, the death of a young child, the too-soon death of her beloved husband. Both women were strengthened by fires of tragedy I cannot begin to imagine, let alone fathom.
Where Miriam worked the phones, Mom worked the postal service, typically sending off a card or note or letter every day to her network of friends & relatives around the world. Hardly a day went by that she didn't receive one in the mail.
Like Miriam, Mom genuinely wanted to hear what was going on in everyone's life. She was a peerless listener & tender correspondent. Whether writing to a nephew in California, her BFF in Corpus Christi, or a minister about a sermon, she wrote with caring & compassion, good humor & keen interest. Through her cards, notes & letters, Mom carried on conversations that threaded the years.
Smiled, reading that Miriam "always had not only a kind word but a piercing insight" to share. Ditto Mom! Like Miriam, she could sum up in a few words what most of us couldn't even see. Going on 15 years since she slipped from us, person after person still tell me how they could always count on her to help lighten their load by listening with a caring heart. Grinning, remembering her doctor at St. Mary's teasingly beseeching me to please leave Mom & take another patient home for hospice care - "If I am feeling low, all I have to do is go into her room & I always come out feeling better."
Mom & Miriam ~ clearly kindred spirits & blessings to all.
Credits:
amazon.com
bizjournals.com
inspacesbetween.com
cosmiccowgirlsmagazine.wordpress.com
No comments:
Post a Comment