Do you celebrate
your yahrzeits
like birthdays?

Are you closer to us
at this season
as when planets
as align?

Are you always here
or only when we remember?

When you watch
a funeral
from there
what do you feel?

Did you organize
a welcome party
for the new arrival --
chains of illness
thrown off
like light bedsheets
in the morning
-- and is she already
making art
with steady hands?

Making art. See The Art of Adapting (2018, 9 minutes) and its sequel Tina Epstein - Parkinsons (2023, 38 minutes). Seriously, watch these short films by Christian Ayala; they are well worth it.

Both of my parents died during the lunar month of Adar, three years apart. Yesterday my cousin Tina z"l joined them in whatever comes next. May her family be comforted along with all who mourn.