Our next guest blogger has asked to be anonymous because of the sensitive nature of the topic. However, she has much to teach us about the nature of forgiveness, especially when a child commits suicide. She says:

“For most of my life, I was not a big believer in G-d.  Perhaps not the best thing to admit for someone who has chosen Jewish communal service as a pr0fession, but there it is.  I had as thoroughgoing a Jewish supplemental school education as any kid growing up in the suburbs in the 60’s, so I’m not sure how I developed such skepticism.  Perhaps it was observing Rose Kennedy at pretty close hand, wrapping herself in what I thought of as the mumbo-jumbo of the church in order to explain away the horror of what was happening in her family.

Saddled with these personal beliefs, or lack thereof, it nonetheless became my task to teach about G-d to other people’s children.  I came to terms with my assignment by asking them to think about what it means to be created in the image of G-d.  I suggested that perhaps it means to engage in what might be called G-d-like behavior.  We enumerated what that might look like, tried to practice it with mitzvah projects, and I was satisfied.

And then my son killed himself.  Every day since, the events of our lives together have run in my head in a never-ending loop, pausing only to give me an opportunity to regret something I said or did not, or did or did not.  Intellectually, I realize that it was mental illness that took him from me, but my personal experience tells me that we haven’t the power to forgive our transgressions, real or imagined.  It is, in fact, the G-d in my life, that G-d who forgives, and the occasional practice of what I hope is G-d-like behavior, that allows me to go on living.”

We learn from Job that sometimes it is better to say nothing in the face of unspeakable grief. Since our author was courageous enough to share deeply from within, I would ask that you hold comments on the blog. May our blogger continue to heal, continue to have courage, continue to find comfort in the G-d that forgives and in emulating G-d’s behavior.