A RemoteShiva Chat with Taylor Winfield, Spiritual Care Liaison
RemoteShiva Chats are blog posts based on real-life conversations between members of the RemoteShiva volunteer team about the experiences, emotions, and challenges that drive their work on the project. In this post, RemoteShiva Spiritual Care Liason Taylor Winfield shares how her grandfather’s death showed her the power of Jewish ritual to navigate the chaos of grief.
On June 21, 2019 (18 Sivan 5779), my beloved grandfather passed away. I was there with him in the intensive care unit, holding his hand when he cried out that he wanted to go home, looking into his eyes when he could no longer speak, and by his side when he took his last breath. I embraced him for a final time, and stuttered through my tears, Baruch Dayan HaEmet, Blessed is the True Judge.
As my family members each navigated grief in their own ways, I took action to ensure that people were taking care of his physical form and watching over him. I helped organize the funeral as well as his shiva. I researched Jewish traditions, psalms, and poems that could help give us meaning in these moments. I was grateful that Judaism helped guide me through these moments of darkness, bringing in some light and giving me ways to bless his life. I dedicated myself to care more for others in their most vulnerable moments in his honor.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, I realized that many people would not be able to be physically present with their loved ones during their last moments. I knew that traditional Jewish mourning rituals, including shiva, would be disrupted. When I heard that a few folks were developing a platform to help mourners navigate the process of holding a shiva online, I was eager to help.
As a sociologist, a spiritual care provider-in-training, and a human being who has navigated personal grief, I know the importance of ritual and community in the healing process. Rituals and community help us navigate moments of total disruption and loss of control. They give us specific steps that push us forward on the path towards healing and help us feel less alone and overwhelmed. For those reasons, I am dedicated to building new ways for people to mourn, having meaningful shivas, and get emotional and spiritual support during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.
My grandfather’s favorite motto was “Lead, Follow, Or Get the Hell Out of the Way.” I like to think that our RemoteShiva team is operating in a way that brings that motto back to life. We are leading by developing digital ritual tools that have never existed before, following by learning from those with deeper experience in Jewish communal leadership and software development than we have, and getting the hell out of the way when necessary. I feel blessed and grateful to be part of the RemoteShiva team as we develop new, innovative ways to organize and facilitate the shiva ritual in order to support mourners and those who care for them.