The sound of the waves pounds against my ears, my mind, my heart. “Now” A pause. “Now!”
A pause, as if taking a breath. “Now. We told you now.” A pause. “Now, dammit, we told you now.” Pause. “Now! You didn’t listen!” Pause. “Now! What are you going to do now? Now?”
And I dissolve in tears.
I’m standing in a parking garage on Tybee Island, the barrier island of Savannah. It was here that my love for Ruth-Ann truly blossomed, here that our children were born. It was here that I walked the beach with her at midnight, dodging the incoming waves. And it was here that I had come with my daughter Dahlia, as mourning pilgrims, a few months after Ruth-Ann died.
The concrete and cinder blocks of the parking garage had muffled the sounds, so that the sharpness and incessance of the sea were masked from my ears. But the second I turned and entered the open air stairwell, I was assaulted by the pounding of the waves.
We had walked the beach many times. It was one of Ruth-Ann’s altogether favorite things to do. We would hold hands, or I would walk with my arm around her to shield her from the occasional cold breeze that would blow in from the sea. Or we wouldn’t touch at all, but just revel in being utterly intertwined. We stared out over the waves lapping up on the shore, overwhelmed by the vastness of the open ocean, and the opaque blackness of the night sky, and our love. Receding waters drew us toward endless darkness, which embraced and caressed our amazement that somehow out of all this immensity we had found each other, had been blessed with finding each other.
And now the air was filled with the pounding of the waves and my full-throated sobs, as I clutch my daughter to me, and she tries her best to offer me her love and compassion. She doesn’t fully comprehend why now, of all times, I have broken down in grief. Since the funeral, it hadn’t happened much, and I will have to explain it to her. But how? What I know is that I had made a mistake, a terrible mistake, a mistake from which there is no release, no redress, no way to find comfort or consolation.
The immeasurable other-worldly dimensions of the beach always reminded us of the infinite, and because of her other-worldly qualities reminded me of Ruth-Ann. She was a woman through whom waves of the divine shefa, the overflow of G-d’s power and love, flowed quite easily and with great regularity. One look at Ruth-Ann, one kind word, one graceful gesture, and you knew there was a G-d. It was so seductive, so deliciously paralyzing, to be embraced by all that was without end.
But I had lost sight completely of the soul-crushing concussion that takes place when finite time confronts infinite feeling. The essence of tragedy. At the very moment when I drifted in a blissful oceanic feeling of endless oneness, of sky and sea and Ruth-Ann and me, the waves were pounding at me, screaming “Now!” as a reminder that our time was not endless, that this was the only time we had left, and with every wave’s receding, our lives were being pulled inexorably into time’s unforgiving currents.
How many more times could we have gone to the beach together? How many more times could I have taken her to one of her most favorite places? How much more could I have, should I have, appreciated the divine grace that had been gifted to me, and given something back? How many more words could I have used, should I have used, struggled with, embraced, and rejected in frustration to tell Ruth-Ann all that she meant to me, and to thank G-d for her, for allowing the infinite to become finite, if only for a few seconds in eternity? How often did I throw all that away for the sake of the irrelevant, the empty, the trivial? How often had I said that I was just too tired, and lied, and said that we’ll do it another night?
What I did not know then, and what crushes me today: Each wave was a desperate, pounding reminder to forget all about infinity, to remember instead that we are as ephemeral as that very wave. A desperate, pounding, reminder: “Now! You have only now!!!! You have only now!!!!” Followed by a pause as the wave, unheard, returns to the fullness and emptiness of the sea.
But I had been seduced by the infinite, the ein sof, the endless G-d of unknowing, and as a result had neglected the shechinah, the loving Presence of G-d beside me, gifted to me, for such a short time.
And so here we were. Now. A husband alone, a girl without a mother, and waves pounding endlessly on the midnight shore.
My friends, in a few moments we are going to begin our martyrology and mourn those whose lives were cut short by barbarians, who never had a chance to express the fullness of their love. And then we will continue with the Yizkor service, and remind ourselves that we are all standing at that shore. We remember those who have gone before us. We grapple with the losses we have suffered: the loss of companionship, of wisdom, of love. And, perhaps most painfully, the loss of the opportunity to make up for our failures with them. It is too late for that. That “now” is gone, and we have to live with the hole that has left in our lives and in our hearts.
But what we can do, now, is look to those who, by the grace of G-d, are still with us. We can embrace them ever tighter; cherish our time with them more and more; and make a point of thanking G-d for them, every single day.
Love more deeply, now. That is the only way we can stand against the waves of time. As we remember, let us above all remember that.