I offer the Tuesday night writers the spark: Make a List of Questions.
These can be any questions at all, whether present moment questions, those we carried as a child, or even questions asked of us by our children or others.
I make my list as the women and men in the room make theirs:
Who will take care of my differently-abled son when his father and I are gone?
How is my father now?
Where do the butterflies in my belly come from?
How do spiders make their webs?
I list one my older son asked when he was not quite four: If God made everything, why did God make guns for killing people? And another that has accompanied me, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, since I was a young girl: How would I have acted as a prisoner in a concentration camp; would I have shared my bread?
A question then emerges that evokes a pronounced flutter among the butterflies in my belly: Is it really, truly, all right to be happy?
That’s the question I choose: Is it really all right to be happy?
I realize as I begin to write that I have also carried this question close since I was very young. without really knowing it. At the same time, all along, I have held what I was sure was the answer: No, of course, not. As long as people are suffering, especially my own parents, how can I dare to feel happy? (I did not know the expression “no brainer” then; but had I, I would have called my conclusion just that, a no-brainer.)
Fifteen years ago, my father had a dream that offered me a different— and life changing —answer to my question. I had already begun to suspect that “No” might not be the only possible reply to this question. Nonetheless, the truth that it’s not all right to feel happy (or free, or successful, or too relaxed, etc.) when others are suffering, had taken up residence in my DNA. What right could I have to happiness? I hadn’t endured the nightmarish injustices my parents as Holocaust survivors had faced, and others faced now.
If I hadn’t called my father just when I did on a particular morning all those years ago, I might never have found out about his dream and its message. In fact, both might have been lost.
I called my father in Philadelphia from Massachusetts at around 11 AM, surprised and a bit concerned to find that I was waking him. His voice was more than groggy. He sounded unusually subdued as he told me that he was sad, very very sad. Then, as if he were recalling it at that very moment, he said quickly, “I dreamed that I died and I went to—how do you say it in English—Ha’Shomayim? Heaven, that’s it. I dreamed I died and went to heaven.”
I had never heard my father, whose first language is not English, ever say the word heaven, much less talk about it as somewhere one goes after dying. I didn’t think he even believed there was a heaven, in any language. I remained silent for fear of dispelling what subtle dream images might be still within his grasp.
“When I was there…” “When I was there, I saw…”
It seemed difficult for him to get the words out. I was relieved when he continued.
“I saw my mother. This was my first dream of her since the day she sent me away to save my life. I was a boy.”
I could hear him crying. I pictured his head hanging, shoulders rounded. How I wished he could feel my love spanning the three hundred miles between us.
“Tell me about the dream, dad,” I said softly. He drew in and let out a long breath.
“I was in a big, big field. I knew right away it was Ha’Shomayim. I don’t know how I got there and how I knew it was heaven, but I did. There were women, so many women, all standing. They were my mother’s age, all of them holding candles. Every one of them. When you looked out you saw flames as far as you could see; every woman held a candle in her hands. I knew, don’t ask me how, that my mother was there somewhere among them. I looked but couldn’t see her. I needed to find her because I knew she was there. I kept looking and looking. I began to ask— like a crazy person—going from one to the other, asking if she knew Simmah Tuzman, if anyone had seen Simmah Tuzman.”
He was breathless in the middle of the search he was describing. I felt as if I was looking with him for the grandmother I had never met.
“Finally, I saw her from a distance,” he said. “I ran to her. That’s when I saw that her candle was not burning. She was the only one who held a candle that was not lit. “Mamesha,’” I begged her, suddenly so afraid, “’Why isn’t your candle lit like the others?’”
My father’s voice was desperate, insistent. “ I begged her to tell me why hers was the only candle not burning!”
“’Arralha,’ she answered me, ‘you keep putting it out with your tears.’”
My father cried harder than I had heard him cry in years, maybe ever. I did not expect him to interrupt the heaves of his grief when he did.
“I know why she came,” he announced, his voice changing as if he had decided to pull himself together. I felt him back in his apartment now, having left heaven.
“She came because I called to her, I asked her to help me.”
Just as it was the first time I had heard him talk about heaven, this was also the first time I could remember my father asking one of his deceased parents for help—actually asking anyone for help other than a well-to-do distant relative he asked for a loan when newly immigrated from Poland. My father was the strong one who helped others, who saved others— and who had failed to save his mother. Now, asking his mother for help?
“I wanted to end my life last night,” he said, his voice slowed down and lower. I took a lot of aspirins and I drank and drank. Then I went out. It’s a miracle I didn’t crash the car. I wanted my life to be over.”
Had I really heard him? Not only was my father a savior in his own eyes and in the eyes of many others, he was also the ultimate survivor, the one who had and would always defeat death. I had heard my mother speak of wanting to end her life during World War II, but I had never heard my father even come close to uttering what he considered defeat. To die, let alone to wish to die, was the ultimate failure—unless one were taken captive, like his mother and younger brothers, with no way to defend themselves.
My father went on to lament how hard it was to care for my mother, how angry he was at the disease of Alzheimer’s, at my mother for giving in, at all of us for not being there more, and at God, for betraying him again as God had betrayed six million Jews in The War, and many since.
My father’s mother and her candle, waiting to be kindled, seemed left in the dust of his lament. I had been listening to him rage for several years against the disease claiming his life-long companion. Of late, his anger had been aimed more and more often at my mother, so painful to witness.
“Dad,” I urged, “your dream. Your mother. She is trying to give you a message, I think.”
I heard what sounded like a grunt that I hoped I was imagining, but seemed to be his dismissal of the dream and my words. I tried again as gently as I could, wishing he would hear me, really hear me.
“Dad, I think she is showing you that it is your joy she needs, not your sorrow.”
No answer. Could this dream, such a powerful experience and with his mother no less, possibly pierce my father’s despair, anger and self-pity?
“I have to go now,” he said clicking the phone down before I could say anything else.
In coming weeks, months and even years, when I would speak of his dream, my father would shrug, turn away or change the subject, but never engage with me about it.
I came to realize that I was powerless over whether my grandmother’s dream visit would change my father. But it could change me. I could cherish the dream’s gift. I decided that my grandmother was sending me a message— not to the exclusion of my father; it was a transmission to both of us. If he could not receive it, I would.
Her message? More suffering does not relieve suffering. We can serve those who are suffering through our joyous love. My joy is what gives my grandmother’s life, and even her death, meaning.
My grandmother revealed not just a one-time answer to my question, but rather, a perennial one. It is not only all right to be happy, it is life giving. Being happy brings Light into darkness, and not just into my own shadows. To be fulfilled and present frees and, mysteriously, even redeems the past. It is my inner joy and peace that invite more joy and peace into the outer world. This was not a message my father, as I was growing up, knew how to impart to me or even to receive while he was alive, God bless him.
Grandmother Simmah, whom I never knew and whose name I bear, I thank you, as perhaps I have not yet, for coming through time and the vessel of my father’s sacred dream to bless my life with your Soul’s Light. I shall imagine my father standing beside you now with his own candle, kindled from yours.
Rest now, Dad, in the shelter of your eternal flame. I love you.
G'Mar Chatima Tova
I close with this customary greeting whose literal meaning is: "a good final sealing." I will add to that: May you know the love of which you are made. What better than to know this?
With gratitude,
Ani
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Dear Ani ,
I feel so lucky to stumble upon your touching writing about your father’s dream. I really believe that you and I are kindred spirits. I will read this story time to time just to remind me how joy is very important and our loved ones want us to be happy not to be sorrowful .Joy is what makes us feel alive in this world not sorrow.
Since childhood because of my upbringing ,I carried all the world’s sorrow on my shoulders. Your story was also a message to me not only to your dad or you .I think ,your father’s dream was a message through him to everyone who reads your beautiful writing.
Thank you so much sharing it .
Thank you, so much, Elvan for reading and for sharing about how this piece touched you. I am moved by your saying that this message that came through my father from my grandmother was not just for me.
It is so heartening to know that this message has resonated and perhaps even brought relief—and JOY!—to others. Reminds me that all inspiration any of us receives can bless others. That we write about the inspiration can be beneficial, but most important is that we live the loving truth we glimpse.
Blessings, Elvan. May what remains of your burdens be transformed into blessings. For so they are when we have somehow digested our experiences and found the love at their root.
With love,
Ani
Dear Ani,
Your post so beautifully written illumines the connection between different realities that somehow are all one if we have the eyes to see and the ears to listen.
The conversation with your father that shares the fruit of his dream comes to you as a powerful life message. And, as you suggest, it may be helping him now and is certainly helping you. And it is helping me. As I struggle with this question, I am deeply touched by the message of your grandmother. And it uplifts my thoughts to see beyond my limited perceptions to the greater understanding that joy and happiness are always there, we have only to dip into them. And so I will take that with me into my day.
Thank you Grandma Simma, thanks to you Dad and thank you Ani for Sharing this conversation.
Love,
Annette
Dear Annette,
Thank you so much for your deep-from-the-heart sharing. I am so deeply glad that the fruits of this dream are of inspiration to you as they were and continue to be in my life. In fact, the retelling all these wonderful comments have vitalized the experience for me!
I love the idea of it not being too late for this all to help my father. I also appreciate in what you say being reminded that it is primarily our limited perceptions that keep us separate from the joy that is always with us and in us.
Together, we expand these perceptions…
Love,
Ani
Hi Ani,
What strikes me is that the angels *are* reaching out to us. They *do* hear us and and cause certain events to happen, sending us messages of hope that reach out far beyond the original call for help to profoundly transform. We call on them but the deeper truth is that they are always calling us. Are we ready? Are we willing?
More and more I find myself wanting to release my own past, to release it all, every last bit of it. To me, that is the ultimate liberation. No past! Just think! And I’m not in denial. Nor am I blind. I have eyes to see. But I no longer want to continue reliving it. I’m not what the world is telling me I am and am not and have believed for far too long. Yes, to me that is the ultimate liberation. I am a being of light. And so is everyone else. And all of creation. The soul never dies. It is eternal. We can claim the light now *for all beings*. We can create a better world. But first we must believe it can be so.
And the most beautiful lines of all, “Rest now, Dad, in the shelter of your eternal flame. I love you.” I say and repeat these selfsame words to my own dad right now who is calling to me from the beyond. Words rarely spoken: “Rest now, Dad, in the shelter of your eternal flame. I love you.”
It is never too late to heal.
When our earthly life is gone, it is gone. Have we lived it to the fullest? Have we opened our hearts? Have we grown? Have we l.o.v.e.d? We will never again in all eternity be that same person, never again. Ever. We must awaken, for ourselves and for all of humanity. We must do more. We must go deeper. We must keep seeking. That is the meaning of our entire life.
May we find peace now. May we will it. Invoke it. May it fill our hearts and minds. May everything we ever thought we were dissolve. And in its place we will find the Truth: more joy, more love, and more light than we ever thought possible. It starts with one heart. We enter into the light, into the glorious light, right here, right now. We need not wait. It is calling to us, always because that is who we are and will forever be.
United on the journey,
Anne
Dear Anne,
I have started to reply several times and, each time, find myself without words to follow your wonderful sharing here. There is such fullness and truth in what you write. So much heart. Love. Wisdom. Exaltation.
“It is never too late to heal,” resounds. What an invitation you offer, and even lovingly demand, that we live and love into all we can be—all that we are.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“United on the journey,”
Ani
Beautiful, powerful piece, Ani. I agree with your message.
Love,
Harilyn
Thank you, Harilyn, for taking the time to read this and for commenting.
May we each bring more joy to our lives and those of others. A friend wrote recently: “Joy is what love feels like.”
So simple in a way. And our life’s work!
In Love,
Ani
Beloved Ani,
My cheeks are wet. If I can stop weeping maybe I will be able to type.
I am moved beyond words at the image of heaven being the place where
mothers hold candles.
And still weeping too much to type but want to share this wonder (at
the possibility of allowing myself happiness) with you in the midst
of all this heart opening revelation.
Thank you for the ripples of your father’s dream, of your grandmother’s soul…
Thank you for being a person who, like me, carries the question…
would I share my bread?
Dina
Oh dear Dina,
Now you have me crying and quivering with the strings of your soul.
Also–wow, even though I wrote it, when you reflected back:
it makes me take pause and be with this image in a way that I have not yet been.
What you wrote is so tender. Thank you.
Ani
Ani, thank you for sharing a very powerful dream of your Father’s and a response by you that echoes
truth.
By reading it I am inspired to more fully explore my own questions about life here on earth and in heaven. And the questions of joy and sorrow that live within me.I’m not sure where this inspiration will take me but I suspect it is to journey further into my relationship with my mother who very well may be standing in heaven with an unlit candle.
Thank you for lighting the way for many through your wisdom, words, and courage to ponder the difficult questions.
With love and great respect,
Marcie
What you wrote touches my heart, Marcie!
You help me see that how I am/might be obscuring the light is an ongoing contemplation. Today, are my tears putting out, not only my ancestor’s light but casting a shadow over my own?
What also comes to mind, having just written what I did is that it’s not the tears themselves. Pure grief is a form of pure love. Those kinds of tears can actually water life, can purify, I believe.
Maybe it’s the “qvetching,” the whining rather than pure tears of grief, the despair that is devoid of the light of faith, the anger and attack that have buried love…
Yes, an ongoing contemplation…
Thank you so much for adding your voice here.
Ani
It seems so real. That heaven could really be exist. That our deceased loved ones are truly still connected to us. That there is some Being sending us messages of love and joy. May we all receive them, more and more and more…
Love, Meira
Amen. So be it that we receive them more and more and that our world open to blessings from unseen realms.
I love how your words actually help to deepen the experience for me:
All in the piece yet to hear this reflected lets it sink in more deeply.
May we receive [truth] more and more and more.
Love,
Ani
Splendidly told, Ani. Bhagwan Nityananda assures us, “The heart is hub of all sacred places, go there and roam.” Seems like your dad opened his enough to inspire you. That’s what fathers are for.
Love,
Chris
So beautiful, Chris, the recognition of my father opening his heart rather than closing his heart. And what a gorgeous thought–and truth– that this is what fathers are for. Oh, how lovely!
Thank you, Chris, for your words and for conveying the blessings of Bhagawan Nityananda.
Ani
Ani,
Your writing always brings me home to myself. And encourages my heart to open and trust that this searching we do around these questions is really quite awesome.
I’m led to the light in my despair again and again, when I allow myself the deemed luxury of feeling, reading and writing.
I wish for you the greatest happiness and joy since you are a way-shower…in your life, your writing, your spiritual path, your Hatfield farmhouse, your smile and sensibilities.
Love,
Alisande
Dear Alisande,
Isn’t it such grace when we find our way to the light in our despair? I didn’t used to know how to do that. I would get lost, increasing the darkness with my judgment of being “contracted” instead of expanded. Now, the first thing is to bring the light of my compassion to whatever the tightness and fear.
And yes, writing is such a remarkable way to do this, to write my way into the embrace of self-love. I find that from within the space of compassion and self-kindness, compassion for others, and kindness to all, can arise.
I could go on; clearly you have “sparked” me, Alisande. 🙂
I know you are on a continual journey to the heart,
Ani
One word….wow!
3 words in reply: Thank you, Gail.
Well, a few more: Thank you for taking the time to read this and for responding in all the ways you have not given words to here….
Ani
Ani, You have captured the essence of dreams and heaven. Thank you beautiful one, for your wisdom and your exquisite way of sharing it.
Heidi
http://circlesofcommunication.net
Dear Heidi,
I love that phrase: “the essence of dreams and heaven.”
One of the things i love about writing is how we are perpetually the finger pointing to the moon and when someone “gets” and is touched by what we write, it is really because they have already seen the moon and known its wonder.
To say my way of sharing is “exquisite,” Heidi, is the highest compliment. My aspiration is to hold the exquisiteness of living——including the mystery, which can seem exquisitely painful, at times, can’t it?
Thank you for your wisdom,
Ani
Ani – So powerful and so beautiful! I love that you had the kind of connection with your father that he was able to share this important dream with you – even if he couldn’t fully accept the message it gave him. It must have affected him because he gave up his wish to end his life and went on to live for many more years. What is wonderful is that you were inspired to call him that day to receive the message that was meant for you as well as for him, and to claim your own light and right to happiness.
It is difficult for us to understand the kind of suffering that the Holocaust represents – and, which you pointed out, so many people around the world are experiencing today in various ways – slavery,, which is rampant in the world, starvation, and great personal losses which seem more than anyone can bear, such as the genocide in Rwanda where whole families were wiped out by their once-neighbors and others who lose whole families in plane or car accidents. Still, in all of this we have the choice to remain joyous, and live in The Light. If you haven’t read An Interrupted Life: The diaries of Etty Hillesum” I urge you to read it – to see how someone who lived in and died in Auschwitz was able to remain joyous and giving throughout her time there. One review on Amazon states, “The adult counterpart to Anne Frank, Hillesum testifies to the possibility of awareness and compassion in the face of the most devastating challenge to one’s humanity. She died at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of twenty-nine.”
I love your conclusion that more suffering doesn’t relieve suffering. I am happy that this legacy from your father and grandmother has changed that early script for you and opened the door to your knowing that you deserve to be happy and can bring more good to the world through your happiness – as you do through these beautiful blogs!
love, Shivani
Dear Shivani,
Thank you for your heartfelt reflections.
How to be with suffering has certainly been a theme of this lifetime. And yes, how utterly transformative to change the “script,” as you named it so correctly, that mandates one cannot feel light-heartedness, given knowledge of the world’s suffering. And when that world of suffering is in one’s kitchen, well….
It was good to write this piece and remind myself of my grandmother’s revelation at the same time, dipping into even deeper compassion for my father.
Thank you for recognizing and receiving the intent of all these posts to “harvest love.”
To happiness. L’Chaim!
Ani
PS. I just want to add that I have read Etty Hillesum, who has profoundly inspired me, a soul sister. Not long ago, I thought it was time to reread her letters. Your bringing her up is a great reminder!
Wow….beautiful..it is hard for people, and I include myself, to achieve happiness, to be happy, to know how to live in happiness. Maybe I am stating the obvious but I wonder if your father felt bad that he couldn’t do his part to light his Mother’s candle and that he would if he could. Our parents of that generation, thinking of my father, were so dear and yet so burdened with their grief. Here’s a shout out to my father too. You would if you could. You did all you could. Thank you Dad, you did Good.
Also I liked your childhood question; it is a statement of happiness. Thanks Ani
Dear Wayne Vaman,
I so appreciate your comment and addressing how our fathers did the best they could. I love feeling that it is not too late to send them a message of loving-acceptance, of forgiveness. In do so, we forgive ourselves a bit more for the ways that we may believe we have failed or are failing to do better. There is so much power in such loving acceptance to uplift and support us—and to transform.
Thank you again, for taking the time to comment.
With love,
Ani