Remote
Mourning

Jackie Lieske

“We’ll be reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish at one o'clock for Brandy. It would mean a lot if you did it with us,” Remy texted.

“Of course, anything,” I answered.

Twenty minutes to brush up on my Hebrew. Or, twenty minutes to brush up on the language I never learned, reflecting the faith I never ascribed to. But yes. Anything meant anything for my lifelong friend and her now-departed sister.

In those early weeks of Covid, I thought about my grandmother Anna. She grew up during the Depression. Days after birth, she was surrendered to a Jewish orphanage in Brooklyn. In her 15 years there, she taught herself to read and write. Once she aged out, she married a Nazi sympathizer. Her father-in-law spat on her each time she walked by. 

After Anna’s first husband died, she taught herself Hebrew and Yiddish. Her second husband was a Jew, and she happily took his last name to solidify her identity – Anna Sosnowich. Culture and language were her reclamations. Latkes were her artform.

But for me, religion was a lifelong agita. At the age of 9, I wrote an angry essay in miniature on the back of a postcard from New York City. The front image showed a business-suit-wearing angel praying in Central Park. The caption read ‘Angels of NYC pray for homeless AIDS victims.’ 

The essay began: How could any god or angel allow AIDS or homelessness anywhere? 

But anything meant anything. In 30 years of friendship with Remy, anything was lots of things. Today, it meant praying to God and the Holy Land to embrace the spirit of Brandy, a 39-year-old who died of Covid.

Like too many of the pandemic’s casualties, she died alone in the hospital. New York was the epicenter then, and calls weren’t always possible for over-taxed nurses. 

A call might not have mattered to a 39-year-old with the cognition of a 3-year-old. What might she have imagined or understood of what was happening?

Still, Brandy died alone. 

Her mind was stunted, but her heart was strong and singular. She squealed when people laughed. She smiled when people touched her gently.

The last time I saw her, I talked to her, stroking her hand, while her eyes darted between Remy and me. She laughed and chirped with us. She pulled her hand away from mine at one point, pulled the hair tie off her other wrist, and offered it to me, silent, with a broad grin. I smiled and thanked her.

With Remy’s parents quarantined in Florida, she answered the sporadic calls from the hospital. She updated me over text, Instagram, and Facebook messages.

When I received the first message, I knew Brandy wouldn’t return to her assisted living facility. Remy believed or hoped otherwise.

“She’s small, but she’s a tough bitch. Brandy is a survivor, I’m not worried.”

Her hope continued despite infrequent updates on Brandy’s decline. 

I called and texted, but Remy didn’t answer. Three days passed before I received the invitation to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Remy’s family is Jewish. There was mishegoss from the hospital because their pandemic policies precluded religious ceremonies. They insisted on quarantining a Covid body. 

Insistent calls from Remy and her mother prevailed, and a Rabbi was allowed to perform the sacred rite of cleansing Brandy’s body. This was the only way to have her interred with the ancestors in a sanctified Jewish graveyard.

The Rabbi was allowed, but the family was not. No one else could attend to her, and no one else could attend her burial. The Rabbi would say the Mourner’s Kaddish at one o’clock, and those who loved her could join in spirit, separate, at their respective homes.

I Googled a phonetic spelling of the Mourner’s Kaddish and then listened to it spoken on a YouTube video. I hacked and heaved guttural, throaty syllables alone, facing a white candle. I repeated it faster and faster until 12:59.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and thought of Grandma Anna’s self-taught prayers. 

Anything. 

I opened my eyes and spoke the prayer again, with as much rhythm and conviction as I could. Fixed on the candle's flame, I hoped my cynicism would lift and that Brandy would be exalted. 

I texted Remy, “done.”

She replied, “thanks.”

No holy swoosh. No chirping laugh. No vision of grandma at my back.
I cried for three minutes then remembered I was on the clock.

At least the candle is burning by my side.

I logged back into my remote desktop and issued a press release.