Sometime in the late 60’s, I went with my father, who was home and not feeling too well, but not yet in the hospital (so I can place it in time) to visit a shiva house.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
In Judaism, shiva Hebrew: שבעה ; "seven") is the week-long period of grief and mourning for the seven first-degree relatives: father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, and spouse. As most regular activity is interrupted, the process of following the shiva ritual is referred to as "sitting" shiva. Shiva is a part of the customs for bereavement in Judaism
It is considered a great mitzvah (literally "commandment" but usually interpreted as "good deed") of kindness and compassion to pay a home visit (make or pay a shiva call) to the mourners.
I don’t remember whose house we visited or who had died, I just remember going with my father which was unusual because my mother would usually have accompanied him.
We were there a while and my father struck up a conversation with a woman I didn’t know. Somewhere along the line he told me that it was a woman who had been in his class in the fourth grade and he hadn’t seen her since. I was shocked!
How could he remember her? They were both very old and didn’t look the same at all. It floored me that they would recognize each other.
How dumb was I? How unsophisticated or lunk headed I must have been.
As I look back at the scene in my head from this vantage point, I was just a kid who couldn’t have known any better. My father, at the time, was younger than I am now!
I would be happy to run across an old classmate from elementary school, and surprised as well, as he was.
I was in my mid-twenties at the time, and never considered getting old. As an immortal, I guess it was the shock of old that left this impression on me.
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