Chapter 6, "Yizkor," (Hebrew--to remember; prayer service of remembrance) reverses the direction of Chapter 4--here the adult "I" speaks in relation to her own mother and father, recalling memories that sting and memories that sustain. This chapter deals as well with the problems of caring for elderly parents, and with the pain and loss of mourning.
At the beginning of my play, Across the Jordan, the protagonist Daphna, a young Israeli lawyer, struggles to find a way to honor the memory of her recently deceased father. He has been the profound influence on her life; theirs was an increasingly stormy, confrontational relationship. The process of argument in which they were engaged was her pathway to full adulthood, to autonomy, to the inner work of establishing her unique identity in the world. Now, with him gone, how can she complete this process? It could be argued that the play is driven by Daphna's desperate need to continue the ideological battles his death seems to have abruptly and prematurely put an end to. In a final monologue, as she ponders what this religiously and politically conservative patriarch would make of her radical life choices, she offers the following assessment:
If my father were alive now, I suppose he wouldn't speak to me, but since he is dead, he no longer has the power to turn his back. We argue still, much as before.
I'm lying in bed on a Sunday morning
reading poetry. Sharon Olds is telling me
about her father, how he failed her; also
about children, living, unborn, or expired.
And suddenly I realize, in my friends'
apartment, I'm lying not five blocks
from the park where we sat
and argued in the spring of 1978.
It started like every other scene
with you. We were sitting together
on a park bench and I was trying to
make conversation. Your silence
had taught me it was my job,
my job to make conversation
and the pain of the silence was mine
when I failed to make conversation.
When I failed to make conversation,
my whole body felt the pain of the silence.
I had failed to draw you out--
it was my job to draw you out.
But that spring day I had had it with
working both parts. Maybe because
I was newly pregnant and that would
have meant working three parts.
I asked you, "What was it like when I was born?" and
"What kind of baby was I?" and "Did Mom have a
hard delivery?" I had purposely asked easy questions,
to make it easy for you to talk. I didn't expect more
than a few monosyllables. But you answered,
"I don't remember." Over and over, "I don't
remember." And finally, annoyed, "It's too long ago
Merle." I joked, I said, "I've heard you tell
stories further back than that." And you,
who never noticed anything about me,
noticed I wasn't smiling. I was sitting there
in my maternity clothes, the navy tee shirt
with the discreet logo "En Route" and my mother
was dead and for the first time in my life
I wasn't smiling at you. It's hard to remember
the rest. Maybe I yelled, "You don't remember
because you never cared about me." Maybe I
yelled and turned on my heel and left him there
in the park to fend for himself and maybe
I walked home alone. It's hard to remember.
But I know that something
happened between us that day.
Something changed, something broke.
Finally there was a little space between us.