Devotion Read online

  Counting the breath wasn’t working. I kept seeing Moe’s casket borne on the shoulders of my cousins—those same cousins who had carried my dead father more than twenty years earlier. Shirley standing, silent in the bitter cold as the casket was placed in the hearse. The line of the funeral procession as it began its long journey from Boston to JFK Airport, and then onto an El Al flight to Israel, where Moe would be laid to rest. I imagined the second, smaller service in the cargo hold before my uncle’s remains were loaded onto the plane. My eighty-six-year-old aunt and four cousins boarding the flight, settling into their seats, prayer books in hand.

  May you be safe. By now, they would have buried Moe at the cemetery near the gates to Jerusalem. May you be happy. They would be back on the plane, flying home to sit shivah. I hoped the trip wasn’t too much for my aunt. May you be strong. I was no longer having trouble focusing now. May you live with ease. I sent the phrases—the wishes and hopes, my form of prayer—out into the invisible world.

  Later that afternoon, Jacob came home from school and told me that during his school assembly he had raised his hand and asked if they would all say a prayer for Uncle Moe. Two hundred blue-blazered New England prep school children recited the Lord’s Prayer. Our father who art in Heaven. A woman sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor practicing ancient Buddhist blessings. May you be safe. An elderly widow and her four grown children were airborne, bent over their siddurs as the sky outside their windows turned from night to day. Yitgadal v’yitkadash. Each of us human, full of longing, reaching out with our whole selves for something impossible to touch. Still, we are reaching, reaching.

  acknowledgments

  A small bookcase near the desk where I write is lined with books that I found inspiring. In addition to those I mention or quote, I was particularly helped by the following: For the Time Being by Annie Dillard; The Buddha by Karen Armstrong; A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis; Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes; Pascal’s Pensées; Do You Believe? Conversations on God and Religion by Antonio Monda; Ambivalent Zen by Lawrence Shainberg. I am also indebted to the works of Sharon Salzberg, Larry Rosenberg, and Jack Kornfield, and the poems of Jane Kenyon.

  Stephen Cope, Sylvia Boorstein, and Burt Visotzky have been my shining lights on this journey. I didn’t set out to find a yogi, a Buddhist, and a rabbi, and can only marvel that my initial, tentative questions led me to extraordinary thinkers who have now become such dear friends.

  I am grateful to my early readers Jack Rosenthal and Jack Gilpin. Abigail Pogrebin—fellow sojourner, astute reader—talked me out of more than one tree. Mitchel Bleier shared his extensive knowledge of yoga philosophy and allowed me into his advanced yoga class even though I can’t do a handstand in the middle of the room. Tracy Bleier and Ally Hamilton—goddesses both. Maria Da Silva made it possible for me to do what I needed to do.

  My gratitude, as always, to my wonderful agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, whose support I feel every day. Andy McNicol read early pages and offered a generous and spot-on critique. And my deepest thanks to my editor, Jennifer Barth, who got this book from minute one and has been this writer’s dream.

  My beloved aunt, Shirley Feuerstein, is simply the most graceful person I have ever known.

  Finally, my two favorite men: my son, Jacob Maren, the beating heart of this book. And my husband, Michael Maren, who embodies the very essence of the word devotion.

  About the Author

  DANI SHAPIRO’s most recent books include the novels Black & White and Family History and the bestselling memoir Slow Motion. Her short stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, Elle, Vogue, Ploughshares, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among other publications. She lives with her husband and son in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

  www.danishapiro.com

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  Also by Dani Shapiro

  FICTION

  Black & White

  Family History

  Picturing the Wreck

  Fugitive Blue

  Playing with Fire

  NONFICTION

  Slow Motion

  Credits

  Jacket photograph © Oote Boe

  Jacket design by Archie Ferguson

  Copyright

  DEVOTION. Copyright © 2010 by Dani Shapiro. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shapiro, Dani.

  Devotion / Dani Shapiro.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-06-162834-4

  1. Shapiro, Dani. 2. Shapiro, Dani—Religion. 3. Novelists, American—20th century—Biography. 4. Jewish women—United States—Biography. 5. Faith. 6. Prayer. 7. Devotion. 8. Shapiro, Dani—Family. I.Title

  PS3569.H3387Z463 2010

  818'.5403—dc22

  [B]

  2009024816

  EPub Edition © December 2009 ISBN: 978-0-06-196613-2

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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