What We Can Learn from the Obituary Page

Yom Kippur, 5762 (2001)

When I was young, I remember speaking to a relative of mine who told me that the first section of the newspaper that she looked at, after the headlines on the front page, was the obituary page. I remember thinking, "How morbid!"

"Why the obituaries?" I asked her. "The older I get," she said, "the more people I know on that page."

Even those of us who don't ordinarily read the obituary page couldn't very well avoid it during these past two weeks. Whatever newspaper we read, there they were, page after page of notices and articles about men and women whose lives had suddenly come to an end. Some of them had a picture; some not. Page after page of lives condensed, of necessity, into one or two paragraphs.

It's been hard not to get unsettled in the face of all this suffering and loss. It's been hard not to have thoughts, sometimes fleeting, sometimes not, of our own mortality. Thinking of all the different people who met their end on September 11th, cannot but give us a sense that there, but for the grace of God, go I.

One could argue that during the past two weeks, we've already absorbed the impact that Yom Kippur is supposed to have on us. For the practices of Yom Kippur are designed to simulate and therefore to push us to contemplate our own deaths: we don't eat, we don't wash, we refrain from marital relations. We wear white, the color of the garments into which a Jew is placed after death. We begin to feel what it is like for our body to lose its vitality.

This year, it's hard to imagine that, as awe-inspiring as it may be, Yom Kippur can do the job of getting us to imagine our own deaths more effectively than the saturation television coverage of the disaster to which all of us have been exposed.

And yet, awareness of our mortality is only the first step of the process Yom Kippur is designed to initiate. We dare not stop at the stage of awareness. We are supposed to do something with that awareness. We are supposed to look deeply into our souls, into our selves, and question the fundamental assumptions of our lives that we usually take for granted.

Those obituaries that the newspapers have been running these past two weeks - they're really worth reading. They're heart breaking, but they're very instructive.

For example, Rosa Julia Gonzales was described as a caring, resourceful single parent to whom her 12-year-old daughter was everything. It's perhaps not surprising that, in her last phone conversation with her sister, a call she placed from the 66th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center just after the plane hit, she asked her to promise to take care of her daughter.

Donald McIntyre was a multi-tasker. He always seemed to be doing things for other people: shoveling driveways, running errands, playing Mr. Fix-It. A Port Authority police officer, he was able to call his wife as he was running into the World Trade Center to rescue people in order to let her know that he probably wouldn't get home that day in time to baby-sit.

Joseph Zaccolli was in love with his wife. They cared for one another deeply. A few days after the collapse of the towers, miracle of miracles, the rescue workers found his wedding ring. They were able to identify it as his because he and his wife always wore matching rings. His read, "Til Death;" her's was inscribed, "Do Us Part."

Even the obituary headlines are impressive: Patrick Hoey - "Always the First to Volunteer"; Bruce Boehm - "An Incredible Zest for Life."

In those obituaries, there were no stories of victims who were concerned only with their own well-being. No obituary described anyone as irritable or obnoxious or selfish. No one was described as someone who disliked other people. That's not to say that the folks who died lacked flaws. There were, after all, human. No, the point is that they were remembered for the good they did and for the joy they brought to other people's lives.

Good lives on.

How do we want to be remembered? That's the key question that the contemplation of our own mortality is designed to prompt us to explore.

Do we want to be remembered as easily angered - or as a person with "a heart as big as the ocean," as Lisa Gordenstein, a Needham resident who was a passenger on Flight #11, was remembered?

Do we want to be remembered as a person who looked down on others, or as a person who "made everybody feel like they were his best friend," as Alexander Filipov, an electrical engineer and church deacon who was also on the flight was described?

Do we want to be remembered as a "cold fish" or as a person with a "smile as warm as a sunrise," as Neilie Heffernan Casey of Wellesley was described?

These are the questions that these last two weeks are putting to us, perhaps more strongly than any Yom Kippur we've ever experienced!

Now thinking about these questions can be discouraging. After all, maybe we are irritable. Maybe we are easily angered. Maybe we're not as nice as we should be to certain people.

Our tradition has a response: We may not be able to change ourselves completely in one day - not even in one year. But that's no reason not to start.

There was a story in this past Sunday's New York Times. Several nights ago, at a prime people-watching time at one of the city's more prominent fancy restaurants, something very unusual happened. Harrison Ford, the Hollywood actor who has apparently just separated from his wife of 18 years, was seen entering the restaurant with - and I quote -- "a woman on each arm." And nobody paid any attention. Sarah Jessica Parker, the writer and star of HBO's Sex and the City, walked by the restaurant - and nobody batted an eye. But then some firemen came by - and everyone got up and applauded.

Now, I'm not naïve. I'm sure that, before too long, things are going to go back to being like they were at that restaurant - or just about the way they were. But if only for a few weeks -- to put a moratorium on gossip, to refrain from worshipping celebrities, to give credit to some true, often overlooked heroes in our society, it's not a bad thing. It's a start. We can make a start, too.

This past Sunday, I didn't just read the obituary page. I also took a good look at a section of the paper I don't usually read - at least not very carefully: the wedding notices.

It was quite moving. Folks whose weddings had been planned for months, who'd suddenly had their plans totally disrupted: getting married in different cities from the ones they'd initially intended, in many cases in the presence of far fewer guests than they'd expected, … yet getting married nonetheless.

The most inspiring wedding announcement, by far, was for the wedding of Monique Yaptenco and Paul MacIntosh. This pair of New Yorkers had been planning to get married eventually. They are both Red Cross volunteers, and on September 11th, they both rushed to help with the recovery team.

They were put to work answering phone calls from relatives of the missing. Finally, after several exhausting days, they looked at one another and said, "Let's go for it." As the bride put it, "Listening to all the families that have lost their loved ones really emphasizes the need to be committed. We felt the desire to make it official." They were married by an eager and willing New York Supreme Court Judge, to the applause of one hundred of their fellow Red Cross volunteers.

It's hard to think of a more life-affirming act than getting married after working at Ground Zero.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that I expect hordes of people to call the office tomorrow to schedule weddings.

What I am suggesting is that on this day on which we deny ourselves many pleasures and contemplate our mortality, let's go one step farther. Let's contemplate our morality and let's make a commitment to life. For those of us who will shortly be remembering our loved ones during the Yizkor service, let us seek the inspiration that comes from not only remembering them, but from emulating them, from drawing them into ourselves, from embracing that part of them that we really can keep alive. Let all of us commit ourselves to living a life that matters, a life we can be proud of, no matter what happens tomorrow. That is, after all, what coming here today demonstrates: a desire, in the face of the death and destruction we've witnessed during the past two weeks, to live a life of caring and compassion.

As this day comes to a close this evening, let us re-enter life committed to living it to its fullest, strengthened with renewed appreciation for the blessings of life and love. Then may the words of Ecclesiastes truly apply to us: "Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a full heart, for the Lord has looked with favor upon your work." (9:7)

Amen.