THEY say that these things come in threes. The BBC mistakenly
announced that the Queen had died. Charles Kennedy, sadly, did die,
and Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and
the author of Lean In (W. H. Allen, 2013: the current
go-to self-help book for ambitious women) posted a very public,
very personal statement about coming to the end of her
sheloshim, the Jewish period of grief after the death of a
husband.
The statement she posted is remarkable in its honesty. "Let me
not die while I am still alive," she quotes a friend, sounding not
unlike the Psalmist. Expanding this, she laments: "You can give in
to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs,
constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to
find meaning."
What meaning has she found? The importance of family and
celebration; how trite well-meant words can sound: practical
insights, but not what most of us would call "meaning" in the
suffering. She seems caught between our achievement-focused world -
grasping for something she could present as an accomplishment of
this voyage into a wasteland - and the ancient Jewish wisdom that
she took the hand of and let lead her. This is wisdom that cares
little for roadmaps.
What is it about these rituals that speak through the white
noise? One of the most powerful women in the world observed
shiva, sitting with grief for seven days. Orthodox Jewish
tradition dictates that, when faced with grief, close relatives
tear garments.
It is customary for Orthodox Jewish mourners to sit on low
stools, or even on the floor, which is symbolic of the emotional
reality of being "brought low" by the grief. For the week after the
funeral, the mourners refrain from bathing, or wearing leather
shoes or jewellery. And mourners are encouraged not to work.
When faced with death, the only healthy response is to let go of
the things that have made us powerful: to spend time sitting, and
doing nothing but sitting; not to have words that can help, not to
find meaning, but to be present. It is interesting that in John 14,
the passage that is so often read at funerals about Jesus's
preparing a place for his loved ones, Jesus turns to his confused
disciples and says: "I am the way." There is no list of directions,
no road map, only a person holding out a hand.
Sandberg ends with a quotation from that great Irish psalmist
Bono: "There is no end to grief . . . as there is no end to
love."
The Revd Sally Hitchiner is Chaplain to Brunel University,
London.