Sitting Shiva

A grief observed... when dreams and plans pass away.

In Jewish culture, there is a practice of grief observance following a death called “sitting shiva”. It is a week-long mourning period that typically occurs after burial and is meant to provide a time and space for spiritual and emotional healing. During this time, the mourner will sit down for these seven days, sometimes with other mourners or visited by friends offering comfort through presence, without leaving their home for any reason unless it is a life or death emergency. For those familiar, you see an example of this in the Biblical book of Job where Job’s friends “sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights”. There are several interesting guidelines in sitting shiva such as the mourner must cover all mirrors in their home, take no part in ordinary business or work, refrain from reading the Torah (or Bible), or seek entertainment such as watching TV and listening to music. This time is dedicated to observing and confronting grief while allowing it to have its way so that one might eventually discover a more complete comfort and hope on the other side of the process.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” - Matthew 5:4

When my mother passed away almost 3 years ago, I was awkwardly introduced to grief and mourning at a speed that was startling and unsettling. There I was, confronted with feelings of deep sadness that often came out in tears when I was unprepared for them such as while driving to work or home on a random day or perhaps at 3am after interrupted sleep. Many times, when the sadness was at its deepest, the tears would not come, only dullness that would scare me and send me running to entertainment and coping. I have not been great at observing and confronting my grief and giving way to mourning, but I did find some benefit in eventually making an effort to “sit shiva” in the best way that I knew how for my mom.

Since my awkward introduction to grief and mourning nearly 3 years ago, they have been like a faucet that will not completely turn off. As I continue to make space to grieve the loss of a wonderful mother, the flow of grief is most often slower and less pronounced yet there are drops of grief that have nothing to do Annice Legons. Recently, I have found it helpful to investigate this new trickle of grief and be willing to acknowledge what my soul was demanding that I grieve.

I was grieving dreams, plans I had put enough effort into that you would say that they were once alive. Dreams and plans that now lay lifeless and dead after giving way to reality. I remember sitting and thinking that I could not recall a single “dream” of mine that had gone exactly to plan. Unfortunately, it rarely matters how beautiful reality has grown to be when viewing it through the perspective of a dream that has died and gone unacknowledged in its death.

For me, there were a few:

• When I was younger, even through my undergraduate years in college, I thought that basketball would be my future in some way. As a player, as a trainer and teacher of the game, as a product of the game after retirement. Here I stand, with basketball as something that I do every blue moon at the park or local gym mostly on my own.

• I changed majors in college twice before discovering a passion and natural talent for business and behavioral economics. I just knew that my career path would orbit around business and corporate governance in a way that would inevitably lead to significant achievement in that world. Today, I am 6 years removed from a corporate environment with no pathway or trajectory back.

• Quiet as kept, I thought that I might be a person of note in music on some level. I sang growing up, I played instruments in school and at church, and I managed nationally recognized musical artists for years while developing connections. I can say honestly yet in a way that brings me some level of personal embarrassment that I was never good enough at any one of those things.

These were dreams, silly as some might seem, that were never mourned and therefore never comforted. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers within the Beatitudes something of a contractual guarantee: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”. Many of us have not been completely comforted in our lives because we have not taken the time to properly mourn.

My challenge to you is to take notice of your faucet of grief and observe any trickle of dreams or plans that have long died yet have gone unmourned. My ask of you is to take some time this week to “sit shiva” in observance of unfulfilled dreams and altered plans. My guarantee to you is not mine to give but it is God’s to give: “Blessed (Happy) are you who mourn, for you will be comforted.” Once comforted, you may even begin to see how shockingly beautiful and undeserved the present reality actually is.

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