✨️🌹🐾

so don't get too comfortable.

Can just imagine all the girlies on tiktok going "I know this is a bit controversial but I honestly love using limestone as a gastrolith. Not only can you readily forage it but they are just so pretty when smoothed out after regurgitating them"

not every mention of their person is the saddest part of their day. sometimes saying "this was their favorite song" "oh they would have LOVED this" "God I wish they could hear the conversation happening at the next table" "I wish they were here" is lighthearted. the mention of their person can be joyful. or melancholic. or, of course, sad. it can be all of those things at once. but no matter, react to the sentiments as just another piece of the conversation.

you don't need to drop a 55 pound weight onto the conversation and stare at us in pity or silently stare in a combination of confusion and discomfort and sadness.

it's okay. we know they're dead. you acknowledging that in an equal state of nonchalantness will not shock us to death, it's not tasteless or crude. it's a relief. our dead people are still parts of our lives just like anything else, and giving your loved ones the space and comfort and safety to talk about their person is huge.

you can always respond by asking to hear more, by mimicking their tone. your friend laughs and says "they would have LOVED this", take it as a chance to learn why! was their favorite color yellow? did they love kitschy little throw pillows? did they utterly DESPISE kitschy throw pillows? are they referencing a specific story?

if they see someone that looks like their person and get a little sad, ask what reminds them of their person. what was their favorite feature of their person? does it make them mostly sad to see someone who looks like their person? did it make them feel a little bit happy for a moment?

we want to talk about our deceased loved ones. we yearn to mention people who shaped us. the way our society has conditioned us to behave around grief, to respond to the grieving, and to grieve ourselves is so backwards and void of empathy, so we often don't say what we wish we could say. (bell hooks has a wonderful chapter on this in all about love, new visions (ch 11))

Oh, but had the artisan who made me created me instead – a worthy woman... ...I would say "how lucky am I"

Father in heaven who did miracles for our ancestors with fire and water... ...Who would then transform me from a man to woman? Were I only to have merited this being so graced by goodness...

What shall I say? why cry or be bitter? If my father in heaven has decreed upon me and has maimed me with an immutable deformity then I do not wish to remove it. the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure and for which no comfort can be found. So, I will bear and suffer until I die and wither in the ground. Since I have learned from our tradition that we bless both, the good and the bitter I will bless in a voice hushed and weak: blessed are you [HaShem] who has not made me a woman.