My beautiful, dear, longtime sister and friend Robin was taken from us all today in the instant of a deadly car accident. I sat with her just a few weeks ago in a healing circle of the Wellness Institute. I lost count of all the healing circles she and I shared over the last eight years through our two years of the Internship and years of Mentors. Robin was a Rabbi by training and I am a Jew by birth, so we had a natural tribal connection with each other.

Robin and I stayed in touch mainly through the magic of Facebook. Mary Anne and I went to see her daughter play the Viola at the Olympic Music Festival this past Summer. I had promised Robin we would stand in as family as her daughter traveled to the Northwest for the first time. When I saw her and took pictures to send to her mother, I thought I was with Robin 30 years ago when she was her daughters age. Robin took the time to read my recently published memoir and wrote me a lovely review.

And now she is gone in the blink of an eye… Oh sweet grief, burn your purifying fire through my heart lest it break apart in millions of shards.

Jews say the Kaddish as the prayer to remember someone close to us who has died. The entire prayer never refers to  dying or death; only word of praise for the divine.

Exalted and hallowed be God’s great name
in the world which God created, according to plan.
May God’s majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime
and the life of all Israel — speedily, imminently, to which we say Amen.

But what are the beloofs many of us learned about healing from the wound of a loved one leaving us suddenly? “She’s is a better place”, “It was God’s will”, “It must have been her time”, for some even “She’s being held accountable for her sins.” Do these words acknowledge and support the punishing grief I feel today in every cell of my body? I think not. These beloofs just might be designed to bypass the deep emotions of sadness and loss I am experiencing so that the speaker of the beloof might bypass his own.

So I choose this mantra as I navigate my way through a loss I never imagined:

“I surrender to and embrace the unimaginable grief and loss that vibrates through every cell of my body, and allow it to sear its purifying path through me until it completes its journey.”
“I surrender to and embrace the unimaginable grief and loss that vibrates through every cell of my body, and allow it to sear its purifying path through me until it completes its journey.”
“I surrender to and embrace the unimaginable grief and loss that vibrates through every cell of my body, and allow it to sear its purifying path through me until it completes its journey.”

The Kaddish ends with, “May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.”

And so I say, May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

Rest in peace, Robin, and return when it’s time. In the meantime, I will sorely miss you until the end of my days here.