This Beautiful Mourning
RIP Dr. Sheldon Jacobson He was the Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He and his wife, Diana, knew my parents since college. They were my parents' best friends. Diana and my mother have known one another since high school. They've known me since birth, as my parents have known their son Andy. They were always like an extra set of parents for me and, later, another set of grandparents to my daughter. Shelly was the kind of man you instantly liked. Humble, sweet and kind with an adorable smile and a fabulous sense of humor. I feel confident that not one person who came in contact with him could have disliked him.
Here's his NY Times obituary, published by the staff at Mt. Sinai.
Today was the funeral. Today was one of the longer days of my life. I have so much to say, so much to process. Several stories about Shelly at his work were told at the service, and suffice it to say that he was a good man in every single way. He chose to go into emergency medicine specifically because he believed that the under-served—the homeless, the poor, the uninsured—deserved respectful, quality, exceptional health care. He made sure everyone he trained (from clerical staff to doctors) believed the same.
The most beautiful image that was gifted to us today was from a nurse in the Mt. Sinai ER who said when the homeless came in they would ask for Dr. Jacobson. She would call him at his office and he'd put his white coat on and run across Madison Avenue to the ER. Everyone who came through there saw Shelly as their doctor, because he treated them as such.
The service at the cemetery was one of the more intense experiences of my life. It was storming off and on the entire day, pouring rain between the funeral home in Manhattan and the grave in Vahalla. It cleared up a bit once everyone arrived and we wound our way in our cars to the site. We gathered there, under a big green canopy. When the Rabbi invited anyone who wished to pour some earth onto the grave, two lines formed. I’ve never seen that many people participate, and after a long while it was becoming unbearable—the sound of the dirt on the coffin, the sobs. Diana was pale as a ghost and shaking and looked as if she’d pass out. My mother was losing it seeing Diana like that.
The Rabbi said some final prayers and brought things to a close, but then Diana asked that the grave be filled and family and friends went back to the shovels. It had just started to rain again and at that moment, the skies opened up and it was all just too much—like an orchestrated piece of schmaltz. Those covering the coffin with dirt were getting soaked through their clothes with the downpour. I lowered my umbrella for a moment to feel the rain on my face, to remind myself I was alive.
We got in the car after that and I took this photo, to remember this moment, this moment of life and death interwoven in this beautiful mourning. We went back to the house in Nyack and connected and chatted with family and old friends and people I haven’t seen in ages and people I’ve never met. We missed Shelly.
Shelly lived and taught that it is better to light a candle—to always light a candle—than to curse the darkness. He quoted this often in his work, we were told today. I feel humbled for having known him and honored to have been part of his circle of “family” friends. His passing is wrong in every way and unfair and horrible and just WRONG, but his legacy is expansive. Everyone who has been in contact with him will remember him, and is better for having known him. I will miss him. I will smile when I think of him and his silly jokes and how he emanated kindness, always.
