I did my first personally meaningful Jewish thing tonight.... I've been to a Simchat Torah service (the end and beginning of the yearly Torah cycle) and a regular Shabbat service, but tonight I did something for me. I lit a Yahrzeit candle for my dad. It's a Jewish minhag (tradition/custom, but more formal and ritualized) that one is lit on the anniversary of a loved one's death and left to burn for twenty four hours. My husband helped me say a couple prayers, I was crying too much to say the prayers myself. As there aren't any set prayers for lighting a Yahrzeit candle that I could find, and I wasn't able to go to a synagogue to join up with a minyan (quorum of at least 10 Jews, Orthodox communities say only men but some Conservative and almost all Reform communities include women) to say the Mourner's Kaddish, we said four Psalms.
I miss dad so much, but I know he'd be proud of where I am right now. I may be spiritually in transition, in flux, but I'm making my life work. I'm putting one foot in front of the other and that's something I think he could get behind. I miss you, dad.
Zichrono livrachah. May his memory be for a blessing.
