Adelle Shayna's first birthday was on Shabbos. We got her this Baby Minnie Mouse. It has a blanket attached that swaddles with velcro and there's a little shiny butterfly over the closure. Perfect, y/y? The Farbrengen we had at our shul was small. We sponsored the kiddush and had some sweets because you know how I need my chocolate when times are tough. But it wasn't really that tough. I was nervous and miserable up until I spoke and then I was ok.
I don't remember it perfectly, but I'll paraphrase what I said -
"A dear friend of mine out in the blogosphere lost her battle with cancer last week. She was in a lot of pain, but she wanted to defeat it and go on living. Now that she has passed away, she's gone to a place where she will never suffer or know sorrow again. She will always know G-d and be close to Him. She will never want for anything.
Here on Earth, things are not so peachy. We suffer, we worry, we want. We have to live without people we love or things that we want. Often, there isn't anything we can do about it. Sometimes it seems like the easiest, even ideal thing to do is wait to die. Why not just give up and wait for G-d to take us into His arms? Let Him deal with everything so we don't have to worry.
If that's what we were meant to do, G-d would just take us. What would He put us down here for if all He wanted us to do was wait? He gave us a job to do. It's our purpose to be here and be working to bring Heaven down to Earth. G-d gave us the Mitzvos so we could do that. Every Mitzvah we do puts one more brick on the Beis HaMikdash and brings us one step closer to establishing G-d's kingdom on Earth and bringing Moshiach.
And here's my segue to the Parsha.
Chassidus tells us that Pinchas had the same Neshama (soul) as Eliyahu HaNovi(Elijah the Prophet). Eliyahu HaNovi will be the one who tells us when Moshiach gets here. Chassidus also tells us that every year, in every cycle of life, when something recurs on the calendar, it recurs spiritually. So, for example, every year on Rosh HaShana, the world is spiritually recreated. Let's hope that this year we'll see the Neshama of Eliyahu HaNovi B'guf (in the flesh), telling us that Moshiach is here. Then we won't have to live without anyone we love or anything we need.
L'Chaim. And I'm making L'Chaim on seltzer, because I'm not in college anymore."

We thought that yesterday (Sunday) we would go to her kever (grave).  We haven't been since the funeral.  In the end we decided not to.  I feel pulled to go there only by a sense of obligation, like people would judge me for not having been there yet.  There were a lot of reasons I didn't want to go yesterday.  First of all, we didn't have a ride there.  We would have to take public transport, which would have taken hours.  We would have left Moo in Manhattan.  And then what if being there wrecked us and we wanted to see Moo right away?  It would be impossible to get back to him quickly.  Or, what if being there wrecked us and we just wanted to sleep and *not* deal with Moo's needs for a while?  I knew it would be emotionally, downright miserable and at the end of the day on Shabbos, I was feeling ok.  I didn't really see a reason to plan for misery. 
I just don't want to think of her as a dead body.  I know that she is gone.  Believe, me, I don't need to stand on the earth she's buried under to understand that she isn't with us anymore, but why should I have to relive the night she died and the day we buried her?  How would acknowledging the tragedy or her absense and the horror of losing her honor her birthday?
So, yesterday we had a family day.  We celebrated being together and we went to Governor's Island.  It was really lovely.  The weather was beautiful and the Island itself is wonderful.  Lots to do, very peaceful and quiet and it's easy to get to!  We took some great picutres and really enjoyed being together.  On the way back to the boat to go back to Manhattan, we all bought sodas and it was a fun treat because usually, we just drink water.  Moo really enjoyed his "Ornch," soda.  We came home and had a nice family dinner and then Moo and I made a cake, which we all had for breakfast this morning.  It has eggs!  It's practically an omelette.

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