Reflection from Ramah Bereavement Retreat

In March, we hosted our first Young Professionals bereavement weekend. Please read below a reflection from one of our participants, Diana Epstein.

Lo kol yom Purim — not every day can be Purim (or a holiday).

This is the quote I chose to turn into an art piece on Sunday morning at the Ramah Sasson Bereavement retreat, guided by the incredible artist, Tova Speter. It’s a phrase my dad used to say to me all the time, usually after a particularly loud, joy-filled sleepover with camp friends. What he really meant was something like, “Okay, you girls are having too much fun.”

Which is why it feels a little ironic to say that a bereavement retreat was… fun.

And yet, in a very Ramah way, it absolutely was.

Coming into the weekend, less than a year after losing my dad, I expected it to be heavy. And it was—there were meaningful conversations, vulnerable moments, and definitely tears. But what I didn’t expect was just how much laughter there would be.

There was the classic Ramah-style fun: trivia, games, the kind of programming that brings people together quickly and easily. But there was also laughter woven into the harder moments: in the funny stories we told about the people we lost, and in the shared, sometimes absurd experiences of what people say to you after loss. (If you know, you know.)

Somehow, the weekend made space for all of it.

That balance felt deeply Jewish and deeply Ramah. The understanding that we can hold joy and pain at the same time. That even in a space centered around loss, there can be singing, connection, and moments of levity.

Being there reminded me that grief isn’t something you carry alone, even when it feels that way. It’s a process, a journey, one that doesn’t move in a straight line. Lo kol yom Purim, not every day is filled with joy and laughter. There are hard days, heavy days, days that don’t feel anything remotely close to a holiday.

But now, I don’t face those days alone.

I left the weekend with something I didn’t even realize I was missing: a community. People I can text, call, or just sit with, people who get it. And that doesn’t make everything easy, but it does make the hard days feel just a little bit lighter.