Burying my father in Jerusalem

This is how my grief feels right now: I am alone in a room with a jackal, and I don’t yet know how to make my way out. I am only beginning a journey I cannot fully name, grieving what I never had as much as what I’ve lost.

Sunset over Jerusalem. Source: Wang Zhuolun/Xinhua via Getty Images

I did not grow up with my father. My brother and I were born in Paris, but when I was five, my parents separated and my mother took us back to Australia where she had grown up. We did not stay in contact with our father, and I only reconnected with him as an adult. We maintained a relationship, but as much as we tried, the wounds of our history remained unresolved.

He moved to Jerusalem years ago; the last time I visited was a few months back. His health was deteriorating, but he thwarted all attempts to get him better care, stubbornly subsisting on cigarettes, Turkish coffee and lemon-mint soda. Although he struggled to walk and his lungs were failing, he channelled his helplessness into anger. Like an ember still capable of igniting, his rage hid the true extent of his physical deterioration.

We maintained a relationship, but as much as we tried, the wounds of our history remained unresolved.

My brother called me on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, to tell me that our father had died. I knew it was coming, but I was dumbstruck. I boarded a plane the next day.

A Jewish funeral follows the death as soon as possible. In Jerusalem, the body is not placed in a coffin; it must be returned to the earth. As a mourner, there is nowhere to hide. You must confront the reality of death, touch its rock bottom and be comforted by community, no matter how much you want to be alone.

Har Hamenuchot cemetery in Israel. Source: Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images

The funeral was held at Har HaMenuchot – the Mount of Rest – in one of the new sections of the cemetery. While we waited for other mourners to arrive, a dusty blue van rattled up and members of the chevra kadisha – the burial society that had cared for my father’s body – emerged. I knew what was coming and I was afraid. They rolled a trolley to the back of the vehicle, then lifted the body of my father from the back of the van and heaved it onto a gurney. My father was wrapped in a tallit, a prayer shawl. The contours of his body, so slight and vulnerable, jarred with my memory of his solid living presence.

This was my father’s body. My breath caught in my lungs. There did not seem to be enough air.

I was taken into a room with my brother. As blood kin, our shirts were torn according to Jewish tradition. The chevra kadisha rent my brother’s shirt with a utility knife, then my brother took the knife and rent mine. I was aware of the proximity of blade to skin.

My brother and I were asked to identify the body. My father had been cleaned according to religious rites and wrapped in tachrichim, white linen cloths. The chevra kadisha tenderly unwrapped the prayer shawl and removed the linen shroud covering my father’s face.

My father was dead. The air was completely sucked out of me. I felt like I was underwater. Someone held me; gentle hands pulled me to the surface. I was not alone.

Pallbearers came to lift the stretcher and we descended the stairs, stopping at intervals so my brother could recite the Kaddish, the mourners’ prayer.

The only sound was the thud of earth falling onto the body. It was hard not to feel suffocated

At the freshly dug grave, a member of the chevra kadisha stepped into the opening, and they tipped the stretcher so my father’s body slipped inside. The mourners took turns shovelling soil into the grave. The only sound was the thud of earth falling onto the body. It was hard not to feel suffocated. I mustered the strength to say the words I’d penned in the plane, tracking my father’s unorthodox life in Marrakech, Jerusalem and Paris.

Following the funeral, we headed to my father’s house for the shiva, the ritual seven days of mourning. We covered the mirrors with sheets and left the door ajar to welcome anyone who wanted to pay their respects. We were meant to spend the days surrounded by visitors, reminiscing about the dead and sitting in the embrace of a communal grief. But I had so little time in Jerusalem, so we curtailed the hours of the shiva. Between visitors, we sorted through my father’s hoarded belongings, opening the bedraggled boxes one by one.

I was surprised by how well I was coping. During the days, I tended to visitors and my father’s house. But at night, a deep restlessness gripped me. I became conscious of a little girl huddled inside me, biding her time.

It is traditional to bring food to mourners during the shiva. The gift of sustenance at this time cannot be underestimated. A woman who road-tripped with us through North Africa when I was three came to sit with us. She brought a simple but exquisite Moroccan dish of salmon stewed with olive, capers, saffron and tomatoes. Each mouthful grounded me.

Author Gadia Zrihan aged three in Morocco. Source: Supplied

She also brought photographs I hadn’t seen before – snapshots from that forgotten trip. My father, wild-haired and bohemian. My mother, innocent as a gazelle. I was there too: a bright-eyed gamin on the Marrakech streets. Something about the photos hit me. I was not ready to see myself. I had forgotten so much that the image seemed plucked from a different life. I suddenly couldn’t restrain my weeping.

That night, my father appeared to me in a dream for the first time. I was so shocked to see him that I startled myself out of sleep.

I am back in Australia now. Last night I dreamt of a jackal roaming the streets of Jerusalem. In the dream, I helped usher the jackal into a room to trap it, but afterwards realised it had been shut in with a young girl.

This is how my grief feels right now: I am alone in a room with a jackal, keeper of the underworld, and I don’t yet know how to make my way out. I am only beginning a journey I cannot fully name, grieving what I never had as much as what I’ve lost.