I attended the saddest, most affecting memorial service of my life last evening.
Without dispute, no tragedy in life can match the loss of a child – at any age.
The subtraction from the world is multiplied when the children’s achievements have been distinctive difference makers in their chosen fields.
For those of faith, they believe it is G-d who, almost inexplicably, gifts survivors, especially parents, with a public eloquence that surely is unattainable in other times.
In the present case, the parents of four suffered the deaths of their two grown daughters.
At the memorial gathering, the girls’ mother and father riveted their listeners by candidly, touchingly declaring that, while owning the deepest faith, the most acute pain never diminishes.
Enormously accomplished religiously, academically and as married mothers, both young women rapidly were nearing the pinnacles of their extraordinary professional careers.
Unimaginably, both sisters were struck down by cancer.
Dozens of friends from the parents’ synagogue gathered at the family home to honor the 10th anniversary by the Hebrew calendar of the younger daughter.
At 31 years old, a Torah and math scholar, death took her away from her husband, her children, parents, siblings and her students.
Recently, the family marked the second anniversary – in Hebrew, yahrzeit — of their elder daughter’s death by cancer.
An environmental engineering scientist, with an emphasis on water conservation, a wife, mother and teacher, she died at 42.
As Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, nears, we are reminded that despite miraculous advances in technology, the most personal mysteries remain insoluble for all time.
