A Kiss for Rabbi Gabrielle
Author:Roger Herst
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Diversion Books
CHAPTER NINE
THOMAS BELMONT
The doctors told Chuck that Thomas Belmont’s death had been caused by a multitude of diseases, but that pneumococcal fungi, lodged in his lungs, had administered the coup de grace. In the end, none of this mattered; Thomas had long before reconciled himself to the inevitable. Lydia characteristically counseled her brother that it was a blessed release—not only for Thomas, but also for him. And, true to form, she demanded in no uncertain terms that, after a respectful period of mourning (in her judgment about five days), he begin reconstructing his life. “Move on and move away,” Lydia said. It was the exact admonition she’d given Gabby when she’d been beaten in an early round of the Volvo Women’s Tennis Classic.
Chuck looked to Gabby for wisdom and solace, but she was, by contrast, silent. Grief, she had learned, could not be assuaged by philosophy, no matter how brilliantly expounded or poetically framed. She silently disagreed with Lydia’s view that death was a blessed relief. Only the hard-hearted and dispassionate, she thought, could regard the demise of a lover with such distant objectivity. She refrained from saying what she really felt, that to lose someone dear was indescribably awful, not a hidden treasure that resulted in a heavenly reward. Death meant separation to her, and separation was as painful an experience as a human could suffer. Grief, she would often say from the pulpit, is the price we pay for the joy of loving someone, a form of worldly balance. What she gave Chuck was friendship, empathy, and the comfort of her physical presence. It said, more profoundly than any words could, “You are not alone.”
On the day Thomas died, the media published her report to the National Coalition for Gun Control on the incident at the Izaak Walton Range. Invitations to defend her views on radio and TV poured in. She felt compelled to accept a single interview, but declined all others and reserved her time to be with Chuck. In contrast to Lydia’s energetic determination not to let her brother sink into despair, she sat quietly with him, holding his hand and often embracing him.
A stream of friends came to his apartment, offering condolences. Lydia brought food, as though her brother were formally sitting shiva, which he wasn’t. When the apartment emptied at the end of the evening, Gabby remained behind, struck by the absence of anyone from Thomas’s family.
“He seldom spoke of his kin,” Chuck told her. “Somewhere in his childhood they wrote him out of their lives, and he eventually did likewise. His people live someplace near Portland, Oregon, but I wouldn't know how to contact them. What would I say anyway? “Thomas, whom you cast out because, somewhere in the genetic omelet, his X and Y chromosomes got mixed, is now dead. Come and tell us wonderful things about his childhood. Tell us how much you loved him. Tell us how much you will miss him. Help share our loss. Let’s shed tears together now because you certainly didn’t want to communicate when he was alive.
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