Healthy Integration of the Sad with the Glad

A challenging point in weddings, B-Mitzvah and baby namings can be the absence of loved ones recently deceased, who are too far off to be able to attend, who are doing military service, or who can’t be present for other reasons. What to do?

• You can have the person leading the rite invoke the memory of the absent one’s early on, if you wish; immediately after the opening verses of song, psalm or prayer is generally a good spot for this.

• Recently an elderly bride marrying a man who had buried her dear friend, his wife of fifty years only three years before, stepped forward to say these words:

“I wish to invoke the memory of a very wonderful woman who helped make Dave the wonderful man I am about to marry. Anne Elliot, I miss you, dear friend; we miss you. And I thank you for bequeathing me this great gift. When on your death bed you told me to take care of Dave, we had not yet fallen in love. But I think you sensed this could happen and in your way, you gave us your blessing then. I thank you now.”

• It is also customary to visit the grave(s) of parent(s) if one or both have passed on before one's ritual day. There, suspend disbelief and speak your heart to them. Whether you intuit a response or not, the catharsis is a healthy process. It’s customary to ask for their blessing, inaudible though it will be.

• Some have a parent buried too far away to be able to visit the grave. You might instead write a letter as though it were to be given to that parent and share it aloud on an appropriate occasion prior to the day of your ritual.

• To give one's new life the best possible chance, it is customary to work on teshuvah, relationship healing, with anyone in your world with whom you feel there is residual or active negativity. If someone has died and the negativity was not yet resolved, Maimonides recommends visiting that person's grave with witnesses and speaking aloud about what happened and what is needed. For example, the more teshuvah done during the engagement period leading up to a wedding, the healthier a self and sphere of influence one brings to a marriage.

When clearly unsafe though, opt out of this teshuvah process. Unsafe might mean that someone would be a physical threat to you or mentally and emotionally unable to refrain from trying to gut you with words. Whenever possible, the habit of teshuvah is an essential in the life of a healthy couple.