Baruch dayan emet

[xiphias]

My upstairs neighbor died.

My thoughts and prayers are with her daughter marquisedea, who doesn't deserve this.

Anna has had cancer for years now, and her death wasn't unexpected. But marquisedea is only nineteen, maybe twenty if I've missed her birthday. And she's had quite a bit more than her share of shit in the last couple years.

I have faith that Anna's okay. She has nothing further to worry about. But Sami's the one I worry about, because she has to live with it.

For Christians on my friends list: what do Christians do instead of sitting shiva? What is there I can do for Sami?

And, Sami, what is there Lis and I can do for you?

Comments

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

Speaking only of my family's customs:

• The first day or two is usually a blur. Food is appreciated because it's easy to forget to eat with all the rushing to and fro, but generally the family wants to be left alone to work through the initial grieving.
  
• There is usually a visitation the night before the interment of the body. Not everyone has a custom of having an open-casket viewing of the body, but it lets people comfort the family outside the purely formal context of the funeral ceremony.
  
• Usually the interment happens about day four or five in my family.
  
  • It shouldn't need saying, but a plain necktie is correct attire. My cousin Brent showed up to our step-grandfather (Ross Archibald Scott, for whom I'm named) wearing a tie with a hula dancer on it. She even had a grass skirt that would wiggle as he moved. I'm surprised there wasn't a second funeral after his mother saw it.
    
  • If they "pass the shovel" (which I haven't seen at many Christian funerals recently) the same basic rules apply as at Jewish funeral: One shovelful to a person, and don't hand the shovel to the person behind you, lest they be seen as too eager to inter the deceased. Stick it back in the ground where you found it and let the next person figure it out on hir own.
  
  
• There may or may not be a wake after. More food, more reminiscing, often lots of whisky, and for some disturbing reason there always seems to be a vat of creamed corn. This is often the awkward part (the wake, not the corn) because the bereaved may simultaneously want to kick everyone out as well as not to be alone. Offering to host this is sometimes helpful, since marquisedea can just duck out when she's had enough/too much, and you can deal with the crazy 3rd cousin who had too many drinks and is talking about his idea to start an emu ranch in Assembly Square.