A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY FROM MY COUCH

© 2005 David Wainland

In the first days after my son passed away, I was naturally depressed, withdrawn and moody. Once our initial week of mourning, a period called Sitting Shiva by Jews, ended and the house full of guests had thinned to none, I began spending my hours sitting on the couch brooding.

Our home has an east-west view with the eastern half overlooking our pool, a stretch of lawn, a twenty-foot wide canal and finally a thick wooded area. In the past, I often awakened early just to see the sunrise over the palms and pines. The couch on the western wall had become a place of retreat. I would sit; half crumpled with my left arm and hand behind my head and my right hand clutching a cup of coffee fast going cold and stare blankly at the view that once delighted me.

One morning I arose early, though the sun had already risen, made my coffee and slouched into the forest green leather sofa. The sun was in my eyes, but I thought for a moment that a large dog was passing through a cluster of fruit trees in my yard. I rose to get a better look and was stunned to observe a beautiful, full sized deer, a doe, not five feet from the other side of the pool. She slowly walked by the screen chewing her cud and midway through she turned her head, looked directly at me and then continued on, never pausing though never frightened.

Those of you who live in the country may have seen the same. However, I live in the populated area of Boca Raton, Florida. There are no full sized deer in our area, nor are they indigenous. In the Keys there are miniature deer called Key Deer, but to the best of my knowledge, no full sized animals. No one I know or have spoken to has ever seen a deer in this area, not in the last twenty years at least.

I have taken this as a sign and though I am not a spiritual person by nature this became the sign for which I had been searching.

One weekend, a full year later, my granddaughter Hannah was due for her Hebrew naming ceremony. My daughter wanted to honor her brother by giving her daughter his Hebrew middle name. Unfortunately, it did not work out because her father-in-law shared the name and we do not name after living people. Our Rabbi, Amy Rader suggested an alternate, Yael.

We held the naming outdoors on the ocean beach and as the tradition of our people called for, the Rabbi immersed her head in water. They normally do this in a Mikvah, a ritual indoor bath, but we were all in love with the idea of an ocean-side affair.  

After the ceremony, I asked the Rabbi, "What is the English translation of Yael?"

"I'm sorry, I thought I mentioned that. It means deer or doe."