Having to deal alone with loss

I HAVE experienced a death with no mourners at the funeral and no shivah to follow. This is how the Jewish religion works for those of us who suffer stillbirth, or the death of a baby in its first month of life.

We buried our stillborn son on a bright February morning, with just the rabbi there to comfort us in our anguish. We spent the next seven days with very close family, just a few friends. It was a hushed, quiet time of mourning someone we hadn’t had the chance to meet but loved passionately all the same.

At the time it made sense to me. I’d just given birth and was in shock. Solitude was a comfort, not a hardship. But a year later, the stonesetting was a wonderful help.

It was conducted by

Rabbi Baruch Davis from Chigwell Synagogue. He and his wife Nechama had suffered a similar tragedy and had given us enormous support.

The prayer hall was packed with friends and family. The love in the room was palpable. Our loss was acknowledged in public and shared with others. At last I could enter a new phase of living without my lost child.

Now, cruelly but necessarily, so many Jewish mourners are going to face bereavement without the rituals we take for granted. The funeral, the shivah, the chances to share memories and tell stories, to drink tea and look at photos. It is a fundamental change that shakes all of our assumptions. And it challenges all of us to find ways of hearing mourners and helping them through the lonely months until they can once again hold stonesettings at which to share their loss and feel the love that is all around them.

At last I could enter a new phase of living without my lost child’