Friday Sep 7 Elul 12
“Always say what you feel, and do what you think is good and right. If I knew that today would be the last time I’d see you, I would hug you tight and pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul. If I knew that this would be the last time you pass through this door, I’d embrace you, kiss you, and call you back for one more. If I knew that this would be the last time I would hear your voice, I’d take hold of each word to be able to hear it over and over again. If I knew this is the last time I’d see you, I’d tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already.”
(Gabriel García Márquez)
Regrets about insufficient closure aside – who left this world this past year in my life? well loved and known or lesser so, yet still holding space in my heart?
This is one of those PREPENT tasks that require sitting and thinking, reviewing the year. We know right away the names that surface to our soul – close ones whom we miss and maybe still mourn for. There are the celebrated lives like Joan Rivers or Gabriel García Márquez himself, and those whose terrible public death in the hands of murderers made them known to all of us with rage. Countless others listed as numbers with each growing day of war.
This is one before the last days of ‘harvest’. As the second sabbath of Elul begins, take a moment to recall just one or two names of those whose memory you want to honor, give them an imagined hug or handshake, thank them and let go.
When you light the sabbath candles this evening, add another one for peace, and for the memories, with love. Then go and hug a living someone!
Shabbat Shalom.
