Ear­li­er this week, Ron­na Wineberg wrote about Chanukah and shared a delet­ed scene from her first nov­el, On Bit­ter­sweet Place. She will be blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s Vis­it­ing Scribe series.

When my father died at 93 in June 2012, I want­ed to do some­thing to mark his death. To say Kad­dish. My moth­er had passed away in 2010. We sat shi­va for her. After­ward, in the flur­ry of clear­ing out the house near Chica­go where they’d lived for 55 years, tak­ing care of my father, and mov­ing him to an apart­ment, I hadn’t said Kad­dish for her with reg­u­lar­i­ty. This was a nag­ging omission.

At the time of his death, I was revis­ing my nov­el, On Bit­ter­sweet Place. I stopped the revi­sions, shak­en by the loss. Though my father lived a long life, he’d been doing well and died sud­den­ly. As I wres­tled with my grief, I real­ized I might have been too cav­a­lier about the deaths that occurred in my novel.

A friend once told me that los­ing the last par­ent is like los­ing a third par­ent. Now I under­stood. I felt the loss of my father, my moth­er, of who they were togeth­er, and also of the pro­tec­tive, lov­ing lay­er they had pro­vid­ed for me. In the best cir­cum­stances, there was a hier­ar­chy to mor­tal­i­ty; the buffer had fall­en away. 

After my father’s shi­va, I returned home to New York and pro­ceed­ed with my plan. I didn’t have high expec­ta­tions when I went to my first Fri­day night ser­vice at the lit­tle shul in Green­wich Vil­lage. The syn­a­gogue I attend­ed for hol­i­days was far. I chose the one in the Vil­lage because it was close to where I lived. I was dis­ap­point­ed to learn there was no dai­ly minyan, only Fri­day evening and Sat­ur­day morn­ing ser­vices, occa­sion­al­ly Sun­day morn­ing. I thought of the syn­a­gogue as the lit­tle shul.” The old build­ing was set back from the street, behind a court­yard, and it was tiny, like a rus­tic city house. I went there hop­ing the syn­a­gogue would be a repos­i­to­ry for my grief. I imag­ined I should be able to weath­er my par­ents’ deaths with ease, per­spec­tive, and accep­tance. But, in truth, I felt unanchored.

That first Fri­day night, twen­ty con­gre­gants sat in the small sanc­tu­ary. When I stood to say Kad­dish in this new venue, shock swept through me. I had reached this point in life: an orphan. I was flood­ed with an ache for my moth­er, my father, the world they had cre­at­ed togeth­er. My father’s humor, the tilt of his head when he laughed, his qui­et wis­dom. When I was younger — with youth­ful arro­gance — I had been crit­i­cal of him. Now I was flood­ed with love for him, the depth of which I hadn’t real­ized when he was alive. The words of the Kad­dish, like a chant, calmed and com­fort­ed me. 

After ser­vices, the rab­bi, can­tor, and con­gre­gants greet­ed me warm­ly. I met a man at syn­a­gogue that night, also a writer. He became a friend. His moth­er had just died, too, two days after my father. This became the rit­u­al that sum­mer, fall, win­ter, and spring: Fri­day night I attend­ed ser­vices, look­ing for­ward to Kad­dish, to think­ing about my par­ents. Judaism was impor­tant to them. In the lit­tle shul, I felt close to them. Some­times I attend­ed on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. After ser­vices, I vis­it­ed with oth­ers in the con­gre­ga­tion. Then my new friend and I walked home togeth­er. We part­ed when our paths diverged. He went west. I con­tin­ued south. But first we stood on the side­walk and talked about our loss­es, the raw grief, the admin­is­tra­tive details, fam­i­ly com­pli­ca­tions, the clos­ing up of a parent’s life and final clos­ing up of an essen­tial part of our own lives. We talked about our writ­ing. He and I were walk­ing down the same road.

I said per­son­al prayers at home because there was no dai­ly minyan.

To my sur­prise, I began to look for­ward to going to ser­vices, see­ing the rab­bi, my new friend, and oth­ers. We devel­oped a bond. The pre­dictabil­i­ty of the rou­tine com­fort­ed me. I was grate­ful I’d found this new world. 

Dur­ing the year of say­ing Kad­dish, I went back to work on my nov­el and con­sid­ered what it meant to suf­fer a loss. Suf­fer. I thought about what a par­ent can give to a child. Not a phys­i­cal gift. But time, atten­tion, emo­tion­al connection. 

I saw more clear­ly what the Czer­nit­s­ki fam­i­ly in On Bit­ter­sweet Place could give to one anoth­er. I felt greater empa­thy for my char­ac­ters, for Lena and espe­cial­ly her moth­er and father who had lost par­ents. And I remem­bered a quote by Sig­mund Freud I’d read years ago. He wrote about his father’s death: By the time he died his life had long been over, but at a death the whole past stirs with­in one.”

I knew the past stirred with­in many of the char­ac­ters in On Bit­ter­sweet Place. Lena and her fam­i­ly had fled their home­land in the Ukraine after the Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion and set­tled in Chica­go in the 1920s. They had been per­se­cut­ed, lost rel­a­tives and a home. I knew the past stirred with­in me when I thought of my par­ents. Like Lena, I want­ed to slam shut the gates of tears. I under­stood the char­ac­ters with new depth and felt a kin­ship. I under­stood the poignan­cy and final­i­ty of absence. I dove into the work of revi­sion, eager to help the char­ac­ters wres­tle with their grief, mourn, and join the world of liv­ing again. 

Ron­na Wineberg is the author of On Bit­ter­sweet Place and a debut col­lec­tion, Sec­ond Lan­guage, which won the New Rivers Press Many Voic­es Project Lit­er­ary Com­pe­ti­tion, and was the run­ner-up for the 2006 Reform Judaism Prize for Jew­ish Fic­tion. She is the recip­i­ent of a schol­ar­ship from the Bread Loaf Writ­ers Con­fer­ence and fel­low­ships from the New York Foun­da­tion for the Arts and else­where. She is the found­ing fic­tion edi­tor of Belle­vue Lit­er­ary Review, and lives in New York.

Relat­ed Content:

Ron­na Wineberg is the author of On Bit­ter­sweet Place, her first nov­el, and a debut col­lec­tion, Sec­ond Lan­guage, which won the New Rivers Press Many Voic­es Project Lit­er­ary Com­pe­ti­tion, and was the run­ner-up for the 2006 Reform Judaism Prize for Jew­ish Fic­tion. She is the recip­i­ent of a schol­ar­ship from the Bread Loaf Writ­ers Con­fer­ence and fel­low­ships from the New York Foun­da­tion for the Arts and else­where. She is the found­ing fic­tion edi­tor of Belle­vue Lit­er­ary Review, and lives in New York.