Adina Hope

Adina was born eight weeks early, and weighed two pounds. We didn’t have a girl’s name picked out because they’d told us she was a boy, and her mother was alone, because I was deployed overseas. So her mother looked in a book of baby names and found ‘Adina’, which is Hebrew for delicate, which was perfect for this tiny, fragile, exquisitely beautiful little girl. And 'Hope' because...well, for the obvious reason

It turned out to be appropriate in more ways also. Because Adina was born with a heart so delicate and sensitive that it made it difficult for her to live in this world. She was so full of love and compassion for everyone and everything around her that sometimes she couldn’t bear it. Compassion is Latin: com means “with” and passio means “suffer”, so compassion means literally to suffer with one who is suffering, and that’s what Adina did with every person, animal, plant, and even inanimate object which she saw or imagined was hurting. Once she killed a mouse by accident by turning on the dryer when it had crawled into the back, and she broke down as if she’d run over a child. When she was little, she couldn’t eat any meat that still bore any resemblance to the animal it had once been: hot dogs, chicken nuggets, liverwurst—it had to be processed to the point that it no longer bore any reminder that it had been a living thing. We all knew, when the kids were young, that if we saw an animal on the road that had been hit, especially if it was a cat, that we had to try to keep Adina from seeing it. Because although we all felt bad to see such things, we knew that Adina would truly suffer for it, and with it, and that it would stay with her and haunt her.

She grew up but she never changed in that. Every one of you is here because Adina touched you in some very special and real way. Because she made your life better, by giving you a part of her heart: a heart that was so pure, gentle, and loving that once you had seen it and been touched by it you could never forget.

Those of you who only knew Adina as an adult may not know that as a child, she was wispy, willowy, and happy. She flitted around like a butterfly or a fairy. She was fair and ethereal, almost as if she were only living half in this world and half in the other. And indeed, all her life, strange things seemed to happen around her, as if wherever she was, there was a thin veil between this and the other side.

But Adina’s pure, good, kind, generous, compassionate, and loving soul came with a price; and that price was that she lived with a grief and a pain that never completely went away. She felt everything much more deeply than most, and that meant the bad along with the good. Just being alive and aware of all the suffering, injustice, and evil in the world caused Adina grief that, at times, was almost unbearable. And on top of that, she had her own hurts and sorrows just like everyone else does—in fact, she had more than her share; but those, too, she felt more deeply. She had to find ways to cope with that continual pain. Not all of them were healthy for her. But she would always sooner hurt herself than anyone else.

But that delicacy and sensitivity did not mean she was weak. She was delicate, but she was resilient. Like a violet which is stepped on and crushed every day, but each night grows back upright and beautiful.

She could also be fierce, and brave. Especially when she saw someone or something innocent that needed to be protected. Once we were in a pizza place which we had frequented; we noticed that the old guy who ran the place was leering at every young girl who walked by, and Adina walked straight up to him and said "If you don't stop staring at young girls, I'm going to call the police!" and marched off. He tried to get her to come back so he could make excuses or whatever, but she wouldn't have any of it.

Adina deserved better than she got out of life. She deserved a better start than I was able to give her. She was incredibly intelligent, sensitive, talented, and creative; an unbelievably gifted writer and artist, a natural healer, the most loving of mothers, a precious daughter and sister, and the most loyal of friends. She should have gone to an arts school where she could have studied writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, and more things which she never had the chance to discover. She should have published her beautiful stories and displayed her beautiful artwork. Or maybe she should have studied nursing, or some other form of healing, because helping and healing people and animals was her divine gift. 

She should have had much more time to touch the lives of everyone she met. She should have been given as much kindness by those who knew her as she gave to them. She should have had many, many more years with her beautiful daughters, whom she loved more than she loved the entire rest of the world combined, and with her grandchildren, and died an old lady surrounded by as much love as she had given.

Adina never feared death. She believed that it was only a transition to a better life: the beginning, and not the end, a belief which I and her family share with her. Indeed, in her adolescent and adult life, often she wished and even longed for it. To her, it was a graduation, a change for the better. This is why we’ve asked you to wear bright colors today instead of black. Although we all can’t help but feel profoundly saddened at our loss, and it is right for us to mourn it, we are also here to celebrate and congratulate her. 

We all have our allotted share of hardship and pain to bear in this life. Adina has borne hers, and now she is free. She is happy, healthy, whole, and living finally in as much love and light as she always deserved. And she is with her two precious babies, whom she never got to hold or know until now. Be at peace, precious girl: we love you. 

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” – John 11:25

Father we commend our beloved Adina to you in Jesus’s name. We ask you to receive her into your loving embrace, have mercy on her, pardon her offenses, heal her soul, grant her peace, and restore her to us when we, too, come to you in the end.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace, now and forevermore. Amen.