Jewish Reflections on Eight Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter and the Passing of John Ritter

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor 
November 14th, 2003

While I generally did not watch that genre of television comedy, I really enjoyed Three's Company. John Ritter's character was hilarious. In the transience of Hollywood fame I lost track of him until the show Eight Rules for Dating My Teen Age Daughter. While it didn't fit into my personal TV schedule, I enjoyed knowing that he was back and even used the title for a previous sermon. Like all of us I was especially shocked by his death that came without warning, without symptoms and at a relatively young age. Among my many thoughts I wondered what would they do with the show. Some shows just substituted a new actor and continued as if nothing had happened. Other shows used up the remaining tapes, maybe adjusted a bit, and then folded. I was very impressed that they would deal with it in the show. I have watched the beginning of that episode and all of the subsequent one. They are well worth watching, for its makes real the coping with death, particularly a sudden one, and especially that of a young person, that of a dad.

What do we say to our children? Ruby and I have explained my father's and mother-in-law's deaths after illness. It was different when my uncle died at the age of 69 of a sudden heart attack. Eight Rules is exemplary in showing the different emotions people go through. The actors have performed, maybe more than acted, the various and conflicting emotions of anger, guilt, happiness, and bewilderment. The mother and grandparents have also shown their own pain, their roles of support to the children, their own lack of explanation, and especially the grandfather, not knowing what to do and what to say. This show has been excruciatingly real. It stands to their credit. I hope that they are recognized for it. I recommend that you watch it.

So, what do we say? The answers I share with you tonight are culled from two sources. The first is an article on the USCJ website, www.uscj.org/publicaffairs/review/time.htm written by my classmate Dr. Joshua Elkins, entitled "A Time to Grief, A Time to Teach, Teaching Children about Death and Dying: A Challenge to Parents and Educators." The second is a book entitled "Lost and Found, A Kid's Book for Living Through Loss," by Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman. It talks about dealing with all kinds of loss. I include a few thoughts of my own not listed in either. When our children ask these are things that we can say.

I/we love you. The foundation for life is love. Death upsets everything. They need to be reassured of our love, that it is not lost because of anyone's death. 
You are safe. Death is threatening. Depending on their age children react differently. Especially in a context like that of this show they need to know that their world is secure. They are not threatened. 
Just because someone has died doesn't mean that others are going to die now too. They need to know that death, while universal, is not contagious. Disease is, death is not. In this show the father died, not the mother, not the grandparents. Someone else's death doesn't mean that they or anyone else are going to die now.

I cannot broad stroke what to say, how to say and when to say anything in the abstract. Every answer is determined by the age of a child, the nature of relationships, the questions that the child/teenager is really asking, and your and their emotional state. Yet there are thoughts to be expressed, and these are some of them:

Nobody can go through life and lose nothing! We all have lost something, whether it is a toy, a friend, a ball game, or someone we love. Death is forever. Younger children might create fantasies that the death didn't really happen. Older children can be impressed with preciousness of life, and that the consequence of risky behavior is the ultimate price. Death comes to everyone. They must know that death has not singled them out. Every family experiences loss. They must learn: Death is not a punishment for misbehavior. Death is part of the natural process of living. The hurt of death is the price of love. We hurt when someone dies because we loved them. "The only way not to pay the price of love is never to love anybody, and who wants to live that way?" You can lose the present, but you can't lose the love the person has for you that made them give you the present. While we lose things that people have given us, and even they die, they gave us something with love. Since you can't see love or touch love, love never dies. The love with which they loved us is with us always. Even after death, something very special remains. Time helps heal our wounds. Analogous to a broken arm that mends, yet an x-ray will always show that there was a break, so, too, time is the medicine that helps heal a broken heart, though we always know that it once was broken. Perhaps it is coincidence and perhaps not, but currently there is a country song by Patty Loveless entitled "How Can I Help You To Say Goodbye?" In it the mother says to her daughter in several scenes, including death: "Time will ease your pain, Life's about changing, nothing ever stays the same." And that is another thing to teach: 
Life is about changing, nothing ever stays the same. Children can appreciate that they are always changing, their clothes, their height, their grades and the seasons. They now learn that it happens on the ladder of life. Life doesn't end with death. Somehow it is important to transmit the fundamental Jewish belief in a hereafter that is loving, warm, and near to God. Again, there is a current country song by Jewell Buddy entitled "Help Pour Out the Rain (Lacey's Song)." The theme is in the verse song by the daughter to her father: "When we get to Heaven, can I taste the Milky Way?" This song exudes tenderness, gentleness and compassion. Gellman and Hartman cite a piece by Charlotte Zolotow from "When the Wind Stops:" 
Now his mother came to say good night.

"Why does the day have to end?" he asked her.

"So night can begin," she said, "look."

She pointed out the window where, high in the darkening sky, behind the

branches of the pear tree, the little boy could see a pale sliver of moon.

"That's the night beginning," his mother said, resting her hand on

his shoulder, "the night with the moon and stars and darkness for you to dream in."

"But where does the sun go when the day ends?" the little boy asked.

"The day doesn't end," said his mother, "it begins somewhere else.

The sun will be shining there, when night begins here. Nothing ends."

"Nothing?" the little boy asked.

"Nothing," his mother said. "It begins in another place or in a

different way."

God loves us in life and in death. Just because a person dies does not mean that God doesn't love us. Just like a parent always loves their child(ren) no matter what, where or when, so, too, does God love us, unconditional and forever.

How we answer our children depends totally on us, them, their questions and our storehouse of answers. When confronted by the crisis and trauma of death, especially suddenly, like in Eight Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, we need to have an adequate treasury of answers that we believe in and be ready and able to sustain our children, enabling them to endure, grow and flourish. Our confidence in God is the source of our faith.

So let me close by reading this little piece, a word to God, also in Gellman and Hartman's book, by Lee Bennett Hopkins, entitled "Been to Yesterdays: Poems of a Life."

DEAR

Lord -

Please the strength that

Give me to one day I can

The strength say good-bye share with You

To try to fly this prayer.

into

The strength a Thank You

To laugh brighter for listening

The strength sky. Once again.

To cry

It's good Good night

The strength to know Dear Lord,

To hope You're

The strength always there-- Amen.

To cope

Amen.