Dear Michael was buried today.  Somehow a burial makes death so real.  Just hearing about it means nothing.  But today they shoved him into a wall and when they tried to pull the tallit off, it got stuck, so they sealed the hole with stone and putty and covered it with a block.  

I was the only one to speak over the body before the ‘burial,’ and although I spoke directly to him, I couldn’t look at him.  It was no longer raining but the steel gurney seemed so cold, and I kept thinking of how he always bundled up and how cold he must have been.  So when I saw where he was placed finally I shuddered and couldn’t stop.

At my father’s shiva, my mother chased the chattering women out of the house, because, she said, they had no right to mourn him.  So when Debby said she wanted to be alone, I left her.  But I was so relieved that Oren and Ezi went to lunch with me, and that we could talk about stupid things like gifts for children and dim sum.  

I will miss him.  So many people I was closer to passed this year, but his death is so ….