Friday, February 8, 2013

The 40th Day

Tomorrow is the 40th day since Roman died.  As I understand it the Orthodox believe that the soul enters Heaven after 40 days of judgment.  One thing certain, if you look at the number of 40s in the Bible, there are quite a few, so presumably it has some significance.  It has been a long 40 days, I can tell you and not much to smile about.

Roman's wife, Lina has been staying here until she feels up to facing the empty apartment.  She is like a daughter to both of us so she can stay as long as she wants. She brought her (well, Roman's) year old female cat which has given us some smiles and I will write about Krasotka another time.  Lina walks to work in the morning and takes a taxi home in the evening.

Prayers for the dead which is basically the funeral service were held on the third day (Holy Trinity) after death, January 3 (counting the day of death as Day 1) .  Roman is buried a short two blocks from our place in the cemetery where I take the dogs for walks.

Prayers were held again on Day 9 (Hierarchy - 9 layers of angels arranged in stacks of three for the Trinity again) which was January 9, and we had a family lunch at our home for about 15 people.

Tomorrow, prayers will be held again.  We could attend the prayers but won't.   We will have a lunch at a restaurant for about 20 invited people, mostly family.  Our friend Galina, came from Moscow on the overnight train and arrived mid morning.  Tanya's niece Sveta arrived tonight from Dnipropetrovs'k in time for a late supper.  Both of them are the kind of people one cannot be around without smiling so it is nice to have them here.  It was so funny - when Sveta walked in the door, the noise level went up about 5X.  She and Galina egg each other on.

I have not felt like writing so didn't.  Or reading, so I didn't.  Thanks to one of my faithful readers for leaving a comment somewhere tonight and giving me the spark to write.  I was planning on starting again after the 40 days, so this will give you notice, I will be back on this blog and back commenting on yours shortly.  

2 comments:

  1. It's understandable that you would not feel like blogging. When you are ready to write, we will be ready to read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is good to have family and friends (and cats) there who can help bring back some smiles.

    ReplyDelete

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