May I

For the past two decades, my High Holidays prayers have centered on one thing: my relationship with my only sibling. I have prayed for justice, for healing, for rapprochement, for safe distance, for shalom. Some years my voice has risen with fervor and some years it has dropped in despair. More recently I have showed up at services feeling rather a fool for not being more imaginative – or at least more realistic. There are good reasons why Jewish prayers repeat themes and phrases, but my autumn pleas didn’t feel like sacred rituals, they just felt dumb. If you can’t get blood from a stone, what does that say about the person who keeps circling their own private rock, peering closely for any scratch that may ooze a drop or two? 

I never liked to think of my prayer as a petition. I tried to put my own skin in the game, to earn the grace I sought. I had plenty of tools, resources and privilege already and it seemed like hubris to ask for more. Anyway, I never figured a transaction would come out in my favor. If the Universe had meant me to have a close and healthy relationship with my sister, surely karma, boosted by my own effort, would have brought that heart’s-wish within reach by now.  

So my prayers were always soft – an opening. Usually just two words: May I…. May I…. May I.

I figured the Divine One knew our bitter history and would intuit whatever I left unsaid. After so many years of guilt and failure, I did not believe that another detailed accounting of flaws and missteps was the key to change. Nor another promise to try harder. While I had been able to grow in positive ways in other relationships, the thick scars on this one felt stuck to my bones. 

The annual cycle brought familiar emotions. During Selichot I was reminded that Adonai was more forgiving towards me than I was towards myself. Keep trying! I might hear Her whisper. 

Later, when we stood for the Amidah, the traditional phrases did not touch me. Except that every time I rose on my toes to repeat kadosh, kadosh, kadosh I would, without fail, weep. As for the rest of that upright period, I usually opted out of the text. I would clutch the book to my chest, my silent Amidah not only voiceless but wordless. I felt the weight of my feet on the ground, my carriage holding me vertical, while I dropped my shoulders, loosed my jaw and brow. The familiar sensation of regathering myself prompted the question, Why am I here?  

Coming into the Vidui confession of sins and the Tashlich casting-off of sins, I would try to not flinch from seeing my part in the dynamic I prayed to be released from. It took years to admit that in fact I had played a part. And even after conceding that the street was two-way, I still felt righteous: my own behavior, as unattractively brooding, punitive, and rigid as it may be, must be justified by the offenses that had triggered our intractable conflict.  

When it was time for Yizkor I would often feel embarrassed. My ancestors had to be sick of our tiresome unresolved history. Come on! I imagined our hardworking grandparents and great-grandparents saying. We took risks you cannot dream of. We made sacrifices you would never have been able to stomach. You’ve had it so easy. Is this what you’re stuck on? Can’t you figure it out? Won’t you honor us by burying the hatchet? 

As the doors were closing during Neilah, I would be lightheaded with the fast of the day and the fervor of the moment. I would often feel a bit desperate – Am I okay? Have I tried hard enough? Don’t give up on me! – at the thought of any gate, never mind a pearly one, being slammed in my face. As a professional I prided myself on meeting every deadline. But as a person mucking about in human relationships, my obstinacy could well be the thing that left me on the dock, arms crossed, while that lovely ship sailed away without me. 

So I was shocked to my core when, soon after High Holidays last year, my relationship with my sister changed in a single day. That rock did contain blood after all. The animosity between us dissolved, the distance evaporated.  

I felt I was moving underwater, held to the sea floor by the weight of the ocean above, like a tight hug, a Divine reminder that I was in an entirely new space, one where the gravitational forces were of a different order, where I was free of the need for the usual kind of breath. My eyes widened at the sight of the unusual life forms dwelling there. It was grace, beautiful and life-affirming, and in the months since then I have been grateful beyond measure.  

The price, however, is very, very dear – in fact, a death sentence – as these changes were precipitated by her diagnosis with an incurable illness. 

As summer ripens and we enter the month of Elul, I am approaching the High Holidays with new questions, ones I never thought I would be in a position to pose. What now? How do I make the most of this opportunity to share the last chapter of her life? The sadness I feel for our lost decades may never go away. But the joys and sorrows of right now are all that matters. I find myself reaching out to her with the shyness of a freshman getting to know her first roommate. At the same time, her voice, her walk, her laugh, her tastes, her gestures resonate with the cell-deep familiarity that’s unique to people who grew up under the same roof. 

A supplication is not a transaction, but a wish may have a cost. These days I keep reaching deeper for the coinage to pay it. Stretching to make room for whatever may arise. Another cross country flight, another gentle text, another medical report, another video chat to share the kind of easy, saved-up news that might cheer her, each connection sweetened with all the goodwill I possess. Because life’s end is right around the corner, and an answered prayer is only the beginning.