Our sukkah is up. This holiday, the Jewish festival of Sukkot, was one of my favorite Jewish holidays. Decorating the sukkah, welcoming the autumn leaves, sitting with my family sharing meals as we looked up at the sky. Sukkot, so colorful & festive, the only Jewish holiday where we are commanded to rejoice.

commanded to rejoice

The sukkah is up, and I can’t bring myself to sit in it.

As I scrolled through Facebook this morning, I came across Rabbi David Wolpe’s status. “A sukkah is a metaphor for life: fragile and fleeting, but one must be able to see the stars.”

Three days prior, in an article that he wrote, Rabbi Wolpe shared that, “The sukkah is a symbol of impermanence. If a sukkah is built so that it is too sturdy it is not a kosher sukkah. We must sit in something that is fragile, fleeting, sure to disappear tomorrow, for that is our fate as well.”

Here is the thing. Five months after my father’s suicide, I need no metaphors for the fragile and fleeting nature of life. I am living with that notion each and every day. It is palpable, it is raw, it lies just beneath the surface. I wear it, like a layer of clothing that no one can see, and only I can feel. I don’t want to sit in a structure that further reminds me of what I know all too well.

And then there is the word, “disappear.” It’s quite something how loaded and burdensome language can become in the aftermath of suicide loss. You see, on a Sunday I had a father. He was struggling, he was lost, he was not the man he wanted to be. But he was fighting. He was here. We thought he still had hope. On a Monday morning, everything changed, and he was gone. He was just gone. There was no note, there was no goodbye. And so much of the time it feels like he just… disappeared. The structure & the symbolism of the sukkah, are physical reminders of what is no more. He was here, then he was not. Life, fragile and fleeting, the end that awaits all of us, fated to disappear… I simply can’t enter it. It is like having those words wrap themselves around me, anchoring me to a pain that I seek respite from. Come in and dwell, the structure beckons, be both commanded to rejoice and reminded of what is at the very heart of your grief & your pain.

The sukkah, if it is to be kosher, cannot have a closed roof. We must be able to see the stars, they are the reminder of God’s eternal presence.

But as I shared on my post about the High Holy Days, I am struggling with God. I am grappling with my own anger, but it is more than that. I am struggling with the idea of where my father is now. Where is his soul? I want to be able to envision him somewhere. I want to close my eyes and see him somewhere he is whole, smiling, feeling safe and loved. I know he is with God. But I don’t know what I think that looks like. I am struggling to piece together what I believe. I envy those faiths that have such vivid imagery about what heaven is like. I want that. I want to envision God’s loving embrace surrounding and holding my father close. I hope I will find that image, that notion, that comforting idea in time. But for now, I can’t.

I can picture him only in his final minutes of despair and hopelessness, in his coffin and in a grave. My mind, clouded by trauma, cannot access the happier memories, the sound of his laughter, the comfort of his embrace, even the struggles that we endured along the way. I can’t access the essence of my father, the complex man that I loved. The man with whom I shared great joys and abundant sorrows. The man with whom I traveled a road that was not always easy, far from it at times. We had incredible highs and heartbreaking lows, we hurt one another, and we healed. We lost one another and then found each other again. He was my father. I was his daughter. In time, we grew to be friends. When he left, we were closer than we had ever been. I loved him. He loved me. And yet, I cannot access any of it. I look at the stars and search for something that will give me peace. I haven’t found it yet. I’ll keep searching. I have to.

But in the meantime, the sukkah stands decorated and open. And this year, I will not step inside of it. I hope that next year, and in the years to come, I will once again find the joy I have felt for this holiday. That I will not need to be commanded to rejoice, it will simply be a reflection of what I truly feel.

But right now, in this place, at this time… it is not. So I stand on the outside of the sukkah looking in.

I looked up the word fragile.
When describing an object, it means easily broken or damaged.
When describing a person, it means not strong or sturdy; delicate and vulnerable.
The sukkah is the object.
The person is my father.
One I can’t bring myself to step into.
The other I’d give anything to bring back.

Sukkot 2014

A sukkah is a booth in which Jews are commanded to dwell during the festival of Tabernacles [Sukkot], as stated in the book of Leviticus (23:42‑5): “You shall live in booths [sukkot] seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I am the Lord your God.” (My Jewish Learning)

A compilation of some of the letters I’ve written to my father since his suicide on April 20, 2015.

August 6, 2015
Dad,
Today I am knee deep in a mad, angry, pissed off state of grief. No eloquent reflections to write–it would just be filled with expletives and written in all caps– like screaming, ranting & yelling at the top of my lungs–but on paper, which just won’t offer the same release as doing it for real. But doing it for real might just scare the shit out of my neighbors–so I don’t really know what the hell to do with it–it’s just simmering and I’m trying not to let it boil over–so Dad-that’s where you, me & the endless reverberations of your suicide, stand today! Oh, by the way, nightmarish dreams for me-that’s one thing. For my children, your grandchildren-well, that’s a whole other f*cking story. I mean–are you kidding me? I have nothing more to say today! At least nothing rational anyway. But then again, I’m writing you letters on Facebook because I can’t say any of this to you. Because you left. You f*cking left–so how rational am I to begin with?! So, yeah-mad! That’s all I’ve got today–because you left a mess behind here Dad. And you don’t have to do anything to help clean it up… and some days, that is so damn wrong & unfair!
Your daughter,
Deborah

July 31, 2015
Dear Dad,
So, I talked with a DJ this morning, as we try to juggle around and find another new date for Noa’s Bat Mitzvah (because to find a block of hotel rooms on the weekend of CU graduation was not successful)
So, anyway I spoke to this lovely DJ today and was feeling pretty good that we found somebody who had an opening for a potential new date, had great recommendations and was reasonably priced. Off I went to Whole Foods feeling a bit of relief and pretty good. Then I started thinking about how much you LOVED to dance. And I thought about dancing with you at Yael and Leora’s B’not Mitzvah. Then I thought about that beautiful smiling picture of us out on the dance floor-the one I now use on my fundraising page for the Suicide Prevention Walk. Then I thought about not having you at Noa’s Bat Mitzvah, not dancing with you and never seeing that smile again–and then, I cried…. And now, I’m sad–
It’s not fair dad–all of it. You should be there with us to celebrate–you should be here. You were supposed to get better. You were supposed to come out of the darkness and you would have once again danced & experienced joy.
But you didn’t-
And that makes me weep–
Because I truly believed you’d come through this bout of depression. Just as you had done before.
We should’ve danced again dad.
I miss you.
I love you.
Your Loving Daughter,
Deborah
P.S. It would’ve gotten better Dad. If only you had been able to hold on and fight longer. I truly believe that with all of my heart.

July 29, 2015
Dear Dad,
I feel like I’m once again finding joy in cooking/baking. Since your suicide I either didn’t cook, or simply went through the motions of cooking, with no love or passion. I just cooked. But slowly I’m once again finding pleasure in the process. Making healthy foods for family and friends, and testing the limits of altitude and an electric oven. They tell me that is a sign that there is some healing. I hope so. Because most days I feel like a shell of my former self. Reigniting my passion for food, makes me feel a little more alive… a little more like the me I once was. The me I was before…
Love
Your daughter…
Who misses you so much…
D

The following prayers are written in memory of my father, Lowell Jay Herman. He took his life on April 20, 2015. They are a reflection of the pain that my family & I have grappled with.

A Prayer for My Father

Adonai, darkness descended upon him;
cloaking and immersing him in a shroud of shame and sadness.
Mental illness took hold and metastasized into his soul
until he could bear the pain no more.

Adonai, we who loved him are left to navigate the murky waters, the tsunami of grief and the inexplicable pain of his suicide.
Help us not to lose ourselves in the unanswerable question of why, though it is a question we must ask; over and over and over again.
Strengthen us in the face of despair, guilt, shock, anger and overwhelming sadness.
Adonai, help us find the courage to speak the truth, his truth, our truth.
Mental illness took him; let us not be ashamed to say it.
Help us to make meaning of his loss.

We who are left behind need to remember that we were loved by him, though we feel abandoned.
We who are left behind need to know it is okay to be angry at him, to yell, to cry, to curse;
and then to return to a place of forgiveness, because surely he weeps at the pain he has caused us.
Adonai, help us to be kind & gentle with ourselves.
As we process all that he must have been grappling with and the suffering he endured, help us not to burden ourselves with guilt. And if we must carry it for a little while, help us to find a safe and secure place to share it, to speak of it and ultimately to let go of it.

Help us to remember him in life, not to let him be defined by his death.
It will not be easy to find the joy amidst such great sorrow, the laughter amidst so many tears, the love amidst such loss. We pray that you will remind us of the good. We pray that we will have the clarity to see it when you do.

Time does not heal all wounds, this we know.
He is gone. And we are here.
He left us with so many questions. And we will never know all of the answers.
He loved us. We loved him. But it was not enough to save him. We must learn to live with that.
Help us to remember, to remind ourselves, that we loved him with all that we had. We did the very best that we could, with what we knew.
We did not fully understand the depth of his pain, though we tried.
We did not fully understand his shame, though we tried.
We did not fully understand his sadness, though we tried.
We simply did not fully understand the illness that caused him unbearable suffering. Oh how his soul must have hurt.

We pray that he is at peace now. We pray that he is no longer suffering.
We pray that we too will find peace in time; that our suffering will lessen, that healing will take hold.
Our world, our lives, our souls, our hearts, our family is left with fragments; like the tablets Moses threw upon the ground…
the broken pieces are now a part of us
the aftermath of suicide we must carry within us
and we will never again be the people we were before.

Help us to honor the fragments; holding them in the tabernacle of our hearts, just as the Hebrew people carried the shattered tablets with them on their journey toward the Promised Land.
They are a part of our story now. A sacred and sad reminder of what was & what will never be.

Adonai our God, like a mosaic comprised of broken glass, help us to rebuild ourselves, our souls
bit by bit, shard by shard, broken piece by broken piece.
Be with us.
Accompany & carry us through the valley of grief.
Stay with us.
Help us to find a new wholeness.
Help us to find peace.
Help us to tell our story.
Because it is in the telling, that we honor his life, his loss and all that he was to us.

A Prayer for the Unanswerable Question of Suicide

Oh God.
Why?
It is the unrelenting question.
It is the soundtrack to our days; playing over & over again.
Why?
With what shall we answer this painful word?
One simple & tiny word encompasses so much pain.
It seems so easy to simply say;
We did not do enough.
We did not love enough.
We weren’t enough.
We
We
The guilt, the regret, the blame that we take on is crushing.
We bow under the weight of it.
Our knees threaten to buckle.
Day by precious day we seek to explain the unexplainable.
If only we had known more.
If only we had done more.
If only we had better understood the danger signs.
The questions must be asked. Our minds seek answers; so it attempts to make sense of such senseless loss.
But it hurts.
Oh God, how it hurts.
The looking back hurts
The missed signs hurt
So what can we pray for?
We pray that you will be with us on this painful journey.
We, the survivors of suicide loss, want to feel your presence.
Help us Oh God;
To see
To know
To find a way to believe;
We are not to blame.
It was not our fault.
We loved with all that we had.
We met his pain with compassion, his suffering with comfort and his despair with kindness.
We listened.
We were present.
We reminded him that he was not alone.
We did the best we could with what we knew.

And God, in the depths of our own grief, do not let us forget;
He did love us with his full heart.
We were enough.
We mattered.
He did not really want to leave us.
And surely he did not want us to hurt as we do.
He is so very sorry. Help us to know that.

Help us find a way to live with the question that will never be answered.
Help us to understand that it was an illness that took him from us; illness of soul & of spirit.
Mental illness caused him unbearable suffering and darkness descended upon him.
He saw no hope in that moment.
He saw no promise of better days
He saw death as the only way to end the pain…
That was the illness taking hold.
It was not the husband, father, grandfather, brother & friend that we loved and who loved us in return, turning away from life.
It was the illness.
And that is the only tangible answer we will ever have.
Help us oh God, to find peace with that.
And one day, to free ourselves of the crushing weight
Of that one little word, which encompasses so much pain.
Help us to forgive ourselves enough to do that.
Help us to forgive him for the questions that will never be answered and the way that he left us.