Time Out

I've only gotten about half way through the eulogy.
I'll get back to it.
I keep thinking how wrong the whole thing was.
I should have been lying there, wrapped in a shroud, on a stretcher, and Asher should have been saying the eulogy.
I wonder what he would have said.

My sense of time has been confused by bereavement.
Ordinarily I am very jealous of my time. I have a lot to do every day, and I try to use my time, plan my time, control my time, so that I can end the day with the satisfaction of having accomplished something.
Now I look at time as a kind of desert that has to be crossed somehow. I think of my days as huge, barren expanses that have to be filled somehow, because I don't care very much about what I'm doing.
I've been getting up at five to six every morning, so that I can make it to synagogue on time to lead morning prayers and recite the kaddish in honor of Asher.
Despite the strong Jewish prohibition against music during mourning, I have been practicing saxophone or clarinet every day since the end of the shiva, the seven day period of deep mourning. That's another hour or so that I can fill. I've been doing very technical stuff, long tones, scales, intervals, taking advantage of the patience that grief has given me.
I'm working, editing someone's book, but it's hard to concentrate on work.
I can't plan for the future or even imagine the future. Imagining what I might do tomorrow takes a huge effort.
I don't think about Asher all the time, but the thought of Asher is always just one thought away, and I never know what will trigger it.
On February 7 we will mark the thirtieth day after Asher's burial. Until then I'm not supposed to shave or have my hair cut, I'm supposed to recite the kaddish for him ... after that no mourning restrictions apply to parents who have lost a child, although children who have lost parents are supposed to observe mourning restrictions for a year.
I know that we're supposed to go back to living an ordinary life, but I also know that every joy we have will be hollow, and every sorrow that we have will be that much deeper.