Alone Together

Alone Together

Mourning by Harold M. Schulweis

No one knows my grief,
Treasures my private memory.
I mourn alone.

The grief is my own.
Of my flesh and bone
I mourn alone.

But I mourn in the midst of my people,
In the minyan of mourning
With others who cry and remember
Their own loss.

Alone together, 
An individual in community,
Present to each other,
We are each other's comfort.

Alone together
We are each other's consolation.
Alone we are mortal, together immortal
A community does not die.

The kaddish requires community.
A kaddish must be answered.
A kaddish calls for response.
Together we answer:
Yehay shmay rana m'vorach.

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