The Perfect Sukkah October 22, 2007
Posted by makingyourdashcount in death, Judaism, Life Journey, mourning, parenting, Sarah Krause, Spiritual Musings, Sukkah, Sukkot, Thoughts, Uncategorized.add a comment
Even though it was time to give it away, we cried when we did. The sukkah has been hanging on a wall of our garage since taking it down the year that Anna became a Bat Mitzvah. It was our first and our last sukkah. Sarah took tremendous joy in erecting and decorating this structure. It fit perfectly on our back porch and was adorned with real and artificial fruits and vegetables. Sarah loved building it and decorated her first and only sukkah with unadulterated joy. I still see her tippietoed on a chair arranging plastic grapes as perfectly as plastic grapes can be arranged and still look natural. (Some things fit in sukkahs that have no place in homes.) Complete with candy and the popcorn balls I remembered so vividly from my childhood, she took pride giving her little sister the perfect sukkah.
The year she died, resurrecting the sukkah and its fake fruit meant leaving Sarah behind; we couldn’t do it. The next Sukkot came and went without our being ready and then this year. No sukkah. One needs joy to erect a sukkah. Although Sukkot is one of those holidays that always brought me joy; since our loss, it still eludes us.
Our simple wood sukkah is part of our history, not our present. Those simple pieces of wood only make me cry.
I feel good about giving it to these friends. Newly married, not quite to the point of building their family, the sukkah will bring them joy for many years. As I wipe my tears as he drives our sukkah away,I know that giving it away was the right thing to do. Complete with candy and fruit and their own memories, again it will become the perfect sukkah.
Making your Dash Count 