The Importance of Community: Losing a Friend & Starting to Heal

When I posted on New Year’s Eve about the seven lessons learned since Albert Communications launched, I could never have imagined that the first text of 2018 would be news that a friend, her husband, and her children had all perished in a plane crash in Costa Rica while on winter vacation.

A new year was underway, and our community was stunned, devastated, and speechless.

The hours and days since have left ripples of grief throughout so many communities, yet it is through those communities that the family and the rest of us are finding comfort.

A teaching from Ethics of the Fathers admonishes us to “not separate ourselves from our community.” This family, those who died and those who remain, lived – and live – that teaching.

Last night at the shiva (the 7-day period after a Jewish funeral, allowing the family to ease into the void left by the death – deaths, in this case – surrounded by those they love), the home was filled to capacity with people sharing love and memories with the mourners.

There were tears, but there was also laughter. There were memories shared, and long-lost friendships rekindled.  And beyond all that, there was community. Community from old neighborhoods, from school days long ago, from a beloved summer camp, from colleges, from work, from synagogues.

Just as LinkedIn and Facebook connect us with our communities, so too does shiva. The difference is that with shiva, there is the human touch; the hug, the tears and the laughter, all in real time.

For so many of us who knew and loved this family, nothing can or will ever replace that real-time human interaction. But for so many of us to be together, really together, last night, provided the first small step toward healing.

Staying connected electronically is terrific, but nothing will ever, ever replace people being together, comforting one another, supporting one another, lifting each other’s spirits during the darkest of times.