It’s just a bowl of cereal

It’s been six months since my dad died. 183 days. It feels like both a lifetime and a minute. I can’t believe how much has happened since then.

I’ve been able to spend more time reflecting on what life post parental death feels like. Dreaming of what post parental death will be like. I know “dreaming” might seem like a weird word to use, but in this case I know it’s the right one. My dad wouldn’t have wanted me to stop dreaming. Not even for a second. I mean I didn’t—and look at where I am. 

At my dad’s funeral during the eulogy I told the story of the day my dad died. The most tragically beautiful day. Though the eulogy was a bit lengthy as eulogies are, I still wasn’t able to fit in every detail. So let me start by taking you back to that day one more time—

I was in the bayit at camp waiting for the call from my mom that my dad had passed. I had just poured myself a bowl of cereal right before the call came in. After I got off the phone and took a beat I had a few bites of the cereal and then I wanted to go to the river. But I had this bowl with soy milk and cheerios. I didn’t know what to do with it. It had too much soy milk in it for me to dump it in the trash, but it had too many cheerios for me to just pour it in the sink. So what was I supposed to do. I paced back and forth between the sink and the table clutching onto this bowl like it was made of crystal. “I don’t know what to do with my bowl. I can’t just dump it because I have to get the milk out but there are too many cheerios in it so I…” And then Izzy took the bowl and said they would take care of it. 

It was just a bowl of cereal. But then again it wasn’t because it was my breakfast I tried to eat before and after finding out my dad died. 

A small token of normalcy amidst the chaos spiraling through me.

Eventually I made my way back to New York. I got to JFK around 8am where James was waiting. He got out of the car and came around to grab my suitcase, but before that he gave me one of the biggest hugs he’s ever given me. Honestly, I was confused. I mean I was just about to ask if we could stop to get bagels. It was just a flight. But then again it wasn’t because it was the unexpected flight I had to take back to New York from California because my dad died.

That night I went to the theater I grew up in. A place I hadn’t been in years. I watched part of the tech rehearsal for Newsies. It was just a visit. But it wasn’t because I really went to feel the sense of home that place gave me and it took my dad dying for me to go back. I just wanted to hangout, but I also wanted to ask Jared to speak at my dad’s funeral. 

The never ending duality of ordinary and amazing, moment after moment. 

And that is what living the post parental death life has shown me. Everything that’s happening to me and around me. Ordinary and amazing.

Now, everything carries extra weight.

There were two people who were always my first phone calls. James and my dad. For example, my dad was my first phone call when I found out on July 7th that I got an interview for my dream job at Keshet. That also happened to be the last time we spoke.

Look, I know some moments are just moments. Not everything has to have some alternative greater purpose. 

And still, nothing has highlighted my own mortality quite like losing a parent. An experience I’m told is shared by many. So why not lean into the vibrancy of living. 

Often I say that any moment can be a shehechiyanu moment. The shehechiyanu blessing, often said during momentous occasions and at the start of holidays, expresses gratitude for arriving at the current moment. I didn’t think I was making it past twenty-seven years old, so in my life every moment does feel like a miracle. 

The mundane and miraculous.

The ordinary and amazing. 

Not only are they not so far apart, but they wholly, holy coexist.

So here I am in my apartment in Oakland. I just finished work for the day, for Keshet, where I get to live that dream and be a professional queer Jew. I’m writing about my dad and an idea I already knew to be true, but am experiencing in a different way thanks to him.

Sitting next to me is a half eaten bowl of cereal. But it’s not just a bowl of cereal…or maybe it is and perhaps that is the most amazing part.