[Avodah] loss of infants

[Moshe Y. Gluck]

R' Akiva Blum:

Several years ago, I attended the levaya of a young women who in childbirth had gone into a coma, and died several weeks later. The couple was barely through shana rishona. As you can imagine, the attendees were crying away. A very emotional levaya. However, I notices that the young husband had no tears. I fact, he seemed very calm about the whole thing.

 

Shortly afterwards, I attended a levaya of and elderly women, with many children and grandchildren. The attendees were very solemn, but the husband and children were inconsolable. 

 

I realized that people cry for a person’s death for two reasons. One is for the tragedy, the loss of a great potential or future. This was true in the first case but not in the second. The second reason is the loss of the relationship. This was true solely for the family in the second case, but in the first, the husband had only known his wife for less than a year, and the last part allowed him to become independent.

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You are presuming that you can tell what a person is thinking and how deep his grief is (or is not) from the way he is acting. That is not necessarily true.

 

KT,

MYG

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