On our Way

Tomorrow morning we are leaving Israel for the United States for two weeks. The main purpose of our trip is to hold a memorial gathering for Asher at my cousin's apartment on Manhattan. I'm not exactly looking forward to the trip, though I expect it to have many pleasant moments. We will be seeing people who have affection for us and for Asher, and the memorial gathering should be a way to help all of us set our emotions in order.
Asher's death is like a huge black ink blot on the landscape of our lives, an ink blot that constantly spreads and colors everything else, and that darkness will never leave us. In the months since his disappearance and the discovery that he was dead I have learned that many other people carry on in their lives with a similar dark film over everything. Until you experience it yourself, you can't imagine what it is like.
Still, the setting of one's emotions in order is necessary so that one can carry on in life.
Last week (August 25-29) I went to the hottest part of Israel, the Arava and the southern Negev, to attend the international Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat. I went with a friend whose son, an aspiring drummer, had taken part in some workshops preceding the festival, and we spent a lot of time with that young man. On the way back, my friend said to me, "I hope you don't mind that we were with my son so much. I hope you're not envious."
Envious?
The thought never crossed my mind or arose in my heart. Being with his son did make me long for Asher, imagining that I might have gone to the jazz festival with him, but I drew pleasure and consolation from seeing the warm affection between father and son.
The friend with whom I went said several times that this was a new departure for him, that he's unaccustomed to treating himself to vacations like that. It was less of a departure for me. I've attended meditation retreats and a jazz school in France on my own. But, as with almost every pleasure that I take in life, I wonder on and off whether I have a right to it. Maybe I should withdraw completely from the pleasures of the world in response to my son's death.
It did me good to hear all that music, though it didn't do me good to have my sleep schedule completely disrupted - there wasn't a night that we went to bed before two in the morning, and most nights it was a lot later.
If there was any envy in me in Eilat, it was envy of the wonderful musicians.
But, in fact, envy is the wrong word. I know how hard it is to improvise creatively and interestingly, how hard it is to keep an audience's attention, what a challenge it is to keep developing as an artist, and when I hear people who are doing it, I can appreciate their skill.
Even more than their skill, I appreciate their willingness to take the risk of living their lives as artists. Asher had that willingness to take risks. If he'd been a more cautious person, he'd probably still be alive, but he wouldn't have been Asher.