on showing up

my own manifesto

A little over five years ago, my friend Hannah Weiss (z”l) was killed in a plane crash along with her entire immediate family. Hannah was kind, passionate, a wonderful conversationalist, as well as a loving daughter, sister, and friend. Her death was indescribably tragic and all words I have written to describe her and the person she was feel deeply and terribly inadequate. Nothing can convey how catastrophic, painful, and awful this kind of grief is, the kind that cuts deep into your soul and then just when you think it couldn’t get any worse: the knife twists.

I think about Hannah often, about what she would have been like if she got the coming-of-age era she was entitled to. How her politics would have changed. What she would be doing after college. Would she have spent the entire pandemic on a farm? We can only speculate on lives unlived. The story of her life was cut off at the cliffhanger, the beginning of the climax.

A week after Hannah died, a memorial service was held for the Weiss family in St. Petersburg, Florida— a two hour drive from my home in Winter Park. I was a second semester high school senior at the time, and regardless of missing school or any assessments I may have had, I knew I had to be there. I had to show up.

I remember asking another friend, she was younger and friendly with Hannah’s little brother Ari (z”l), if she too was going to attend the memorial service. Her response was apologetic, “I just can’t miss school,” she complained. Too many tests, too many lectures, too hard to catch up. I was in disbelief; death has no second chances, no make ups. But also at that moment, I felt like someone was throwing a mirror at me, forcing me to take a long hard look at my grief-stricken reflection. That was me. I was the person who would never miss school. I was the one so obsessed with my grades, my performance. The past four years had been me prioritizing school over all else. But at what cost? I was accepted into a top twenty university, was a high school valedictorian— but everything seemed so unimportant, so futile when faced with sudden, tragic death. Who cares! I looked at the hundreds of people who had gathered to pay tribute to the Weiss’s. They had touched so many. What had I missed?

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Out of everyone I know, my father is the king of showing up. Blessed with financial privilege (and many airline miles), he has made it his personal responsibility to be there, always. Every extended family bnai mitzvah, wedding, anniversary celebration, birthday party— whether it is in Brazil, Arizona, New York, California— he tries to be there. He goes to funerals, shivas, and even has been known to fly for the funerals of friends’ parents he did not even know personally. Every family member knows that if you invite Michael (and there’s not a big trade show), he will be there. And our family is not small either; I have dozens of cousins and second cousins who I feel very close to, probably because we spent a decade of seeing each other multiple times a year at family simchas. Once, in 2013, there were two family bar mitzvahs that were one Shabbat after the other, two weekends in a row. And so, for my family, that meant two weekends in a row shlepping in and out of the Newark airport. Two weekends of subsequent family reunions; I never found it too much. In fact, I looked forward to weekends of “cousin tables” and laughing late at night until my body hurt.

When I ask my father about what family means to him, about why it is important for him to show up, to be there, he gets very emotional. He speaks of his grandfather Abraham (z”l), my great grandfather, and how in his old age, my father and his cousins would go visit him. His memory had faded and he would ask his grandchildren where they were coming from. Brooklyn, Memphis, California, they’d answer. His incessant response was disapproval, “It’s not good to be divided,” he repeated to them over and over and over in his New York accent tinged with hints of the Old World.

My father said he never really understood this until many years later when he started digging into family history in Warsaw. After tracking down the addresses of his grandfather’s family, he realized that the entire extended family had lived on the same block. Of course his grandfather thought they were divided, he came from a world in which family was always a short walk away! Now, his descendants are scattered around the whole world, connected by plane rides and FaceTime calls my great-grandfather probably could never have imagined.

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This past weekend I went to a friend’s wedding I was not going to go to. I had decided that the timing did not work out, that the flight from Israel was expensive, I had classes that I didn’t want to miss. The decision nagged at me. I discussed it with everyone and everyone had opinions whether I should make the trek or not. My therapist and I wrote a long pros and cons list. I hated how it turned my friendships into a calculating and ranking game: would they do it for me? Do I love them enough? Ultimately, I decided not to go, calling my friend to tell him I wouldn’t be able to make his wedding, ugly crying while walking through the narrow streets of Jerusalem.

Part of moving abroad for the year was the understanding and commitment that there were going to be things that I was going to miss. And I have missed: my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday, another friend’s wedding, my cousin’s baby’s baby naming, and lots of other smaller things, that may be small on the scale of a life but can sometimes feel really really big— especially when you miss them. And no matter how awesome and exciting my life in Jerusalem has become (and it has!) I have still felt a nagging sense of FOMO following me all year.

That FOMO clearly was lingering when six days before, I decided to check the tickets justincase and they were a bargain. I booked them. It was impulsive and crazy and I am so so glad I did it.

During the whole extended wedding weekend— the Shabbat before, the chuppah, the reception, the moments in between— all I could think was: I cannot believe I almost missed this. I cried seven times. I danced the night away. I coached my best friend, emotionally and physically, as she got ready for her twin brother’s wedding. It felt important to be there, I felt wanted and loved.

At many points throughout the weekend, I thought back to the summer of 2020 where Gavi, Micah (the groom!), and I lived together in St. Louis. It was a scary and uncertain time, so much was unknown and bleak and sad, with any kind of optimism seeming silly and fruitless. Certainly, the three of us could never have imagined that three years later we would  be packed together with over two hundred people celebrating Micah’s wedding. Life is full of surprises.

This is my manifesto on showing up, on the value of physical presence, on being there while it happens. It is not always possible, and I know this and I feel this, real things get in the way, different events conflict. But I also want to remember what it feels like to be with those you love for life’s big stuff— the celebrations, the heartbreak, the catharsis, the life cycles. Life is for living, I want to remember, especially when I get bogged down in the logistics, impossibilities, and more generally: the small stuff.

The wedding was dying down and the Florida heat had my face damp and my dress clinging to my body. My hair was flapping in a messy ponytail on the dance floor as I shouted lyrics to a song that was popular back in my own Bat Mitzvah era. I looked around at Gavi, Micah and his new wife, and everyone else I had met and felt close to: we shouted the lyrics, fanatically, together. I thought of Hannah, of life too short. I thought of my dad, all the hours he spends on planes in order to arrive. I took a deep breath. This is a life worth living.

a beautiful wedding sunset!