Not to sit Shiva for Dad? Sorry this is a bit Jewish!

[DistrictAndCircle]

My Dad may die soon. He is a secular Jew. I am an even more secular Jew.

When he dies there will be an expectation that we sit Shiva for him. For those who don’t know - this means prayers every night for a week, at his house, with my sister, his siblings and his wife (who isn’t my mum). Friends and family attend, there’s a bit of food, the Rabbi comes etc. It’s meant to send him on his way and be a comfort to the mourners.

This is a big deal even for the most secular Jews.

But I don’t want to do it! It is genuinely stressing me out, and I fear it will make my grief quite a bit worse. It wouldn’t be a comfort to me in the least. It would be the exact opposite.

Dad lives 3hrs drive away. I don’t want to stay at his wife’s house, or in a hotel, for a week. I don’t want to say prayers in a language I don’t know, to a God I don’t believe in, in a room full of strangers and long-lost relatives who I’ve no real wish to re-find. I don’t even want to do it for a day let alone a week.

I want to be in my own house, with my own family, grieving in my own way, whatever that turns out to be. To be honest forcing me to be away from my spouse and kids doing that seems cruel to me. Yet I know it would be seen as unbelievably disrespectful to not do it, and possibly people will think I’m trying to make a point about religion or make it ‘all about me’ etc when actually I just want to be left alone to choose.

I don’t want to disrespect my dad. We’re not particularly close but he’s a decent guy. But… he’ll be dead! So does it matter?! I am much less close to his wife but don’t want to upset her. I suspect this would though. Not for any logical reason. Nobody actually believes in it. It would upset her just because it’s not the done thing and would be a talking point.

Perhaps this is more pertinent to the Jewish contingent but I’d value anyone’s views on whether I’d be being unreasonable to opt out, or whether I should suck it up for the sake of not upsetting people.

Hi @DistrictAndCircle i am orthodox so have tried to answer your post . First of all im
so sorry thst you’re in this position ; anticipating losing a parent is always so painful no matter how old we are and how unwell they were .
I understand that the rituals of shiva can feel intrusive and alien at a very sensitive time . However they are designed for our benefit , not for the benefit of those around us . The rituals around mourning go further than 7 days and are designed to help us cope with the loss and to mourn in a healthy way which will enable us to emerge the other side healed and hopefully able to move on. The first seven days are the start of it ( shiva is from the word seven ).
This intense period when the mourners effectively remove themsekves from normal life ( not working , cooking , shopping ) but allow themselves to pray ( however they want ) , talk about the person who’s passed away with visitors and rest is very important to the grieving and healing process.
Many people find the days after shiva ends the hardest as the formalities and structure of the seven days ends as does the visits by people and the prayers and they feel the loss more acutely ; the shiva tends , if not to cushion the loss, then to keep its intensity at bay .
I would say you might find the experience more cathartic than you think although I get the logistics are difficult.

I’m not Jewish. I’m Muslim. We also have prayers when people pass away, usually the house has mourners paying their respect for a week of so.

Will you regret not sitting shiva?

Will it upset you to look back on this period and not have participated?

Are you able to speak to your SM and explain your reasoning to her and tell her bring away from your own family will make the grieving process so much harder for you?

can you do a few days if not the full week, end of the week so you observe shiva for the last few days to the end of the week.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this, losing a parent is so hard.

I’m Catholic and while Irish Catholic funerals aren’t really any equivalent to sitting shiva in terms of length, the first part of the funeral/wake will usually take place the night after the person dies, with the removal the day after and the funeral the day after that, hence a lot of very intense grieving while also meeting people and catering for them. God, the sandwich making. I’m contentedly atheist, and don’t believe my relatives exist in some afterlife where they can be comforted by me engaging in a certain ritual, but I have actually found the traditional funeral cathartic, thinking about it in purely selfish terms.

Having said that, I don’t think anyone should do real violence to themselves in terms of observing a ritual that is intolerable to them. Be kind to yourself whatever you decide, OP.

Hi OP, really sorry you are going through this... I think you will know what the right course of action is when the time comes...
personally I would approach it in the sense that if its my parent's last wish, I would want to do that for them and also for myself so that looking back, I won't have any regrets....

but only you know what is right for you

Hi OP,

I would feel really weird about this too. I find emotions complicated and having to go through an intense emotional experience with no privacy would be impossible for me I think.

I find death very complicated too. I've only been to one funeral and the old lady who had died was a lovely person with the best sense of humour. All I could think about all the way through the funeral was how I could hear the sound system in the church picking up a local radio station electric guitar performance and thinking how much the lady would have giggled to hear it. I really had to try hard not to laugh all the way through, because I knew she would have laughed.

Going to the funeral didn't change for me my perception of her having died. For me she is still alive and still a friend, and I still laugh when I see something that she would have liked.

I'm not sure how rituals help, but maybe I have never been taught.

Can you do it on zoom?

I think your best option would be to go and sit shiva for a night or two. You could then say you are going home to sit shiva. As has been said, the service is short and you might be surprised at who you meet and talk to. We only sat one night for my father. However, my mother died six months and we made a deliberate choice not to sit shiva at all. It was what she wanted. People came back to our house and stayed late into the evening and it felt the right thing to do. Finally, you say dad wants ‘the full week’ but at the most that will only be five nights and maybe even less depending on Jewish holidays. Don’t forget that if you upset your family over the shiva you are going to have to deal with them when it comes to the Stone Setting.

If you don't want to do it then don't....but it's probably the last thing your Dad has asked of you and it will probably cause a breakdown of your family as an aftermath. Do you want to keep in touch with your stepmum and siblings? If you're not bothered then don't do it. If you want future contact and to be included in family rituals then you know if you don't go you'll get upset if you're excluded. I'm not Jewish but when my Mum died my siblings and I all went to her house and stayed together for about a week whilst we arranged her funeral and grieved together. I'd have been upset if one of my siblings refused to be with the rest of us.

OP - I’m so sorry for your pending loss. The death of one of my own (also secular) dad is not long away. The wait is unbearable. What we haven’t been able to discuss as a family yet is his wishes for when he passes, and this very issue looms on my own mind.

I could thousands of words on this - the monologue of the internal debate I have in my mind daily. Im not religious, how hypocritical of me would it be? How could I face a Rabbi, would
I be able to say the prayers? But deep down I know what I’ll do, and that’s whatever my dad wants me to. He’ll physically have passed but a wistful part of me hopes really he’ll never truly
leave, and so I’ll respect his wishes.

That comes from having a truly wonderful relationship with my parents though, they are my world. You mention you are not particularly close with your dad, so I appreciate you might not feel the same.

All things considered, do one night. I doubt you will regret just one night. And if you do regret it, that’s ok because it is literally just one night and the next day will come and you will grieve in your own way back with your family. What would not be ok is not doing at least the one night and then regretting that in the future.

Although I agree you’ll be doing this for your dad, whether it’s 1/2/3 or however many nights. You’ll be doing it for yourself too.

Trust me. Once everything’s settled down you’ll be going through it all in your head, what you did/didn’t do. What you said/didn’t say.

Don’t leave yourself with any regrets, you may not think you’ll have them but if you don’t try for your dad it will play on your mind.

I’m coming at this from an Orthodox perspective but when my dad’s death was approaching I dreaded sitting Shiva. For so many reasons (leaving my family and young children at home, having difficult relationships with many family members, the idea of talking about my dad who I loved more than anyone with random folk I barely knew - it all just seemed awful). I very nearly didn’t go, I was ready to make up excuses about missing my flight or whatever.
With that said I’m glad I did go. It wasn’t anything like I’d built it up to be in my head. As his daughter I was in control over who I spoke to and what I did and ultimately it was a really comforting experience for me.

No judgement here if you decide you can’t manage it, grief is a big, scary, personal thing and I hope it all goes as well as it possibly can for you all 💜

i am an atheist from a long line of atheists. We have had no cultural or religious expectations on us so relating it to other cultural expectations is hard.

However, when my Dad died 30 years ago, he was only 49, and he had a lot of colleagues and friends coming round to check in on us, talk about him and memories etc. That brought me a lot of comfort at the time, when I think if I had been asked ahead of time if I wanted people around, I would’ve said no.

I think a good range of perspectives has been given. I’d be tempted to decide when the time comes, but equally to have a good reason why you can’t do it that will be acceptable to others judgements, which can be hard at times of grief. Covid, or stomach flu would be reason enough to stay home and grieve quietly.

Gently,
sometimes it's these end of life rituals that help us process and make peace with loss as well as make sense of the meaning of life and where we all fit it. It helps us connect to others and , really, we need that.
In this most difficult time I encourage you to sit shiva in a way you can manage and allow others to offer support.

I am so very sorry your dad has passed and I wish you peace and hope you will find comfort remembering happier times. May his memory be a blessing. 💐

Very sorry for your impending loss. I'm not Jewish, but if your dad wants you to do it then you don't reasonably have a choice. If you don't do it, you'll always feel guilty about it. And it's not going to happen again.

FWIW, I have been to Shiva prayers as a sort of guest and they do seem to do something that Christian/ secular funeral rites fail to achieve, in terms of surrounding the mourner with the presence of life. A mere funeral can be a very lonely place. I remember my mum at home scrubbing the kitchen floor in tears (lots of muddy shoes from the graveyard) only a few hours after my dad was buried.

Disclaimer. I’m not Jewish and my knowledge of the faith is patchy.
But I did learn a lot about grief and grieving after DH died.
I learnt grief is individual, no two people grieve in exactly the same way and how you grieve affects how you pass through the process and learn to live without the person alongside living with their loss.
If at all possible could you join the family for one evening and say then you prefer to pray or think about your father alone?
Or would this be more appropriate on the last night, which I assume is the night before the funeral?
My personal opinion is if anyone is offended by that they’d just have to be offended.

I think you should do it for your father.

Disclaimer - I’m not Jewish.

How was shiva done during lockdown? Is there any way you could do some time in person and some time via Teams or whatever was used during covid? That way you and your wife and children could participate from the comfort of your own home.

That may suit others too, and allow them to attend when they otherwise couldn’t manage?

Or perhaps I’m missing the point and it has to be done in person, forgive my ignorance.

Shiva is for the mourners. You do not have to be a host. You do not have to be stoic. If you want to sit in silence or to cry you go ahead and do so. All you have to do is acknowledge those who come to grieve with you. Beyond that, it's up to you how you deal with the Shiva, and how many days you sit. Why cannot your dh and children be with you at your dad's house?

Shiva is a strange experience. Not easy, by any means. I can't say I wanted to meet strangers or distant relatives who knew my name but who I didn't remember. Yet when I understood that they were making no demands on me, they were there for me to lean on, and to honour my loved one, their presence turned out to be surprisingly comforting.

I hope you find the way to mourn that works for you and yours.

Sorry, I put dh, but now realise you said spouse.

So sorry for your loss 💐

Not Jew but have Jewish friends.

And have lost a parent.

I think you need to do it and that if you don’t it will actually compound your grief and make it worse.

Part of the reason you don’t want to go is because you don’t want to face the full scale of the grief.

Nobody does.

And it would be much easier to sit at home in pjs eating ice cream with all the home comforts.

But it won’t help you process the grief at all.

I think you need to do this for your Dad. But also for yourself as going through the process, supporting him in this (even though he is dead, he is still your Dad), it will help you physically and mentally acknowledge the loss and prevent you from developing complicated grief.

It's crazy how some posters think there is a correct way to grieve and that the OP isn't capable of making the decision about what is best for her herself.

Everyone processes grief differently. Funerals and morning rituals might be right for some people but they aren't right for everyone. Like I mentioned in my earlier post we didn't have any funeral service, ceremony or wake for my Dad at all. We literally did nothing. We didn't have his ashes and we've no special place where we remember him.

It was 100% the right thing to do. We miss him obviously but we can talk about him and reminisce comfortably. I like the fact our memories are about his life and not his death. Not having a funeral or wake made our grieving easier. It's now been a few years since he died and we have no regrets at all.
I understand that other people want to have funerals and do more traditional morning and that they get a lot of comfort from it. However it's ignorant and even a little insulting to suggest that people that want to do something different are making a mistake,

Yet I know it would be seen as unbelievably disrespectful to not do it, and possibly people will think I’m trying to make a point about religion or make it ‘all about me’ etc when actually I just want to be left alone to choose.

Who do you mean? Wider circle or the people who will be "holding" the shiva (your sister, your aunts/uncles, his wife)? If the former, can the latter cover for you sort of?

When my family member died, it was helpful for my peace of mind to see others doing the full Buddhist traditions for them (without my having to do it). I participated a tiny bit which also gave me some peace of mind, but any more than that would have been scary (I know Buddhism is trendy in the West but the hipsters would run a mile from most real Buddhist traditions!)

So difficult OP. My DP made it easy by saying he didn’t want us to sit for him or to have a stone setting, as he didn’t want anyone standing about ‘clogging and vaning’ . I think he remembered the distress that those rituals caused us all after DM died. For the whole family the stone setting was much harder than the funeral as her death had really had time to sink in and hit us by then.

What do you think your family’s reaction to not sitting would be? If you know it won’t cause division, resentment or make your and their grief more difficult- I would do what is right for you. We are all different. For some sitting is helpful and the support comforting. For others it may be the total opposite. Our family is orthodox but we are all atheists. All the family who would have been distressed by our decision have long since passed, so we knew we wouldn’t upset anyone. I hope when the time comes you’ll know what is best for you to do. I’m so sorry about your DF 💐

@DistrictAndCircle
I predict that after the first two days you may "test positive for covid" which means that regrettably you can't participate any more.

@ironedcurtain

This might explain it
https://www.kveller.com/article/what-to-expect-at-a-shiva/

It’s sort of like when an Catholic dies and they announce people are welcome at the house for the three days before the funeral culminating in the wake (though this doesn’t always happen and some only have people in the evenings, just at the wake or no wake at all).

For Jews it is extended to 7 days, the house is open and people visit, though for the wider community or people doing the prayers it may be just during the prayer time. Mourners are not permitted to wash their body (save for hands and face with cold water) and wear a piece of torn clothing near their heart.

If any of that is wrong please forgive me. Attended Shiva when a dear friend had passed. We talked, we laughed, remembered and cried, and there was an abundance of food. The whole community was literally organising feeding everyone. Kids weren’t around for prayers, but then neither was I, the rest of the time it seemed ok though.

@Muddybooties yes I know what a shiva is, but thank you for the explanation anyway :) my question was more directed at whether the wider circle/visitors or the hosts/immediate family felt that way, which would change the options open to OP imo