Livre d'Or

I worked from home on Monday, and by Monday afternoon Granny still seemed to be entirely stable, so I decided to return to Keele, having no way to know how long this phase was going to last. In fact she died on Tuesday morning, so I should have rearranged things and stayed, but I didn't know that

Yes, these things happen. A week before my mother died, the doctor said to my father on the way out "two or three more weeks", so I went to Berlin as I had booked months before, then I got the call from my father with no chance of getting back to Newcastle on time. But like you said, being with during life is more important with than being with at the death, provided there are at least some family members there.

It was a really strange week, it felt like even before the funeral we were already turning Granny into a myth, which I suppose is how it works when someone dies, but still.

Heh. After the death of my grandfather, my grandmother began to be known as "the Matriarch". When she died, my mother said during the shiva "I guess I'm the Matriarch now," and the entire family as one responded "No, you're not!"

We even had to pick out a Hebrew name for Granny, posthumously, in order to recite the memorial prayers, since Granny as an old-fashioned Liberal Jew had never used a separate Hebrew name.

I was a bit hesitant to say this, but given that you'll probably be doing this kind of thing more in the future, please take this as for future reference rather than past criticism: You're not supposed to use a name people didn't themselves use; if people don't have a Hebrew name you should use the English one, in the Hebrew framework. (L T-G's Hebrew name, for example (you can probably work out who this is), includes "bat Elizabeth".)

And in the evening jack and I went to have a Friday night meal with my parents, which was extraordindarily normal. Shabbat does that, I suppose, it breaks up the week of mourning, and of course it can never possibly be just a normal sabbath, but at some point you have to go back to doing things like making and eating meals and being in a normal rhythm again.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that there is no public mourning on Shabbos. Does your shul/Reform Judaism generally do the traditional thing of mourners remaining out until after לכה דודי then being welcomed in with the traditional expression of condolence?