Mourner's Kaddish? Visiting a Grave? There's an App For That

Just last week, I was excited to learn about Bosan, an iPhone app designed for Japanese families that facilitated a virtual grave honoring from anywhere in the world.  I wondered what would be next app for mourners.  Well, here are two more!

Kaddish, the Jewish Mourner's prayer, is recited publicly  every day for 11 months after a parent's death as a reaffirmation of faith.  This requirement can be difficult for many to fulfill properly though, as the prayer is in Aramaic.  Now there is help in the form of an iPhone app to tutor mourners in the pronunciation of this important prayer.  

Here is a description of the app from its creator, Davka Corporation:

iKaddish teaches the recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish, which is one of the primary ritual observances of Jewish mourning practice.

 It is the ideal tutor for learning the difficult words and intonation of the Kaddish prayer, which is written in Aramaic. The text is displayed with vowelized Hebrew and transliteration. As the audio is played, both the Hebrew and transliteration are highlighted, one word at a time. Users can pause after each screen, tap the screen and listen again, or go forward to the next section. The program includes audio of the Kaddish in both Sephardic and Ashkenazic pronunciation. iKaddish includes the Mourner’s Kaddish and the Rabbis’ Kaddish.

 iKaddish also contains an explanatory section about the Kaddish that includes the English translation, as well as additional information about its recitation.

What else is out there for tech savvy mourners?

The 'Mourning Post' app...

This application allows you to visit and create memorials in conjunction with the web-site, The Mourning Post.com.   The memorials you create and visit may also be added to with photos, obituaries.  There is a guestbook that friends can sign and leave a note, and a timeline feature that allows for the posting of important events and chronological milestones from the life of the deceased.

Perhaps most impressive, this app also makes use of GPS, allowing the user to find and visit the funerals, resting places, and other significant locations of friends and family members in the real world.

The drawback on this app, and the Mourning Post site, is a frequent request to pay more for services.  Visitors are asked for payments to upgrade or perpetuate the listing.  This unfortunately gives the impression that the family is asking for money from the visitors- not the message they probably  want to convey.  I think the whole experience would be more meaningful if the revenue end was taken care of completely at the front end of the account creation process.

Here is a description and list of features from The Mourning Post:

The GPS feature will allow you to pinpoint all the significant locations and give directions if need be.As you travel the world the markers will appear, at that point you simply touch the marker to visit the memorial.

So if you're guilty of not visiting the gravesite as often as you should, fret not, now you may build a lasting memory and create a beautiful memorial that you can visit anywhere you find yourself thinking of the special one in your life.

So if they have lived in multiple locations or have traveled the globe and accomplished many things, or if you just want to carry the memory wherever

you go, you can now bring it all together into one very unique application.

SOME OF THE FEATURES INCLUDE:

- Search for memorials where you are or around the globe

- Create and view your own personal memorials

- Memorials feature (see website for details on different types of memorials):

- Information and description of your loved one

- Obituary

- Photos

- Map of locations that mattered to them (even include funeral/viewing locations to help your family/friends get directions)

- Timeline of significant events and accomplishments that occurred throughout their life

- Guestbook

- Share the memorial with your family and friends

- Send flowers

For More information about this app, visit The Mourning Post 

For more on The Mourner's Kaddish app, visit Davka Corporation

To read about the Japanese app, Bosan, visit 

 Bosan: The Grave Honoring App for iPhone

In The Weeds

December 2008

http://www.semafx.com/albums/album14/bib_mourning_06.jpg

Is it just me, or does l'homme Michelin look like he needs to eat a sandwich?

Wearing mourning dress, or 'widow's weeds' is a custom that is still going strong today.

http://www.presidentprofiles.com/

F.D.R. wore an arm band for a year in mourning for his mother.

When we think of people being 'in mourning' we often picture the Victorians. Certainly Queen Victoria and those of her time, made an art, an obsession, even a lifestyle out of mourning. They developed an evolving set of rules regarding how long the mourning should last (forever!) depending upon one's relation to the deceased, the colors to be worn for each period of mourning (black and white, and later gray and purple), which activities were allowed, and which were prohibited.

Because everyone mourns in their own way, these rules didn't work well for everyone. However, it would be a mistake to dismiss the tradition of being 'in mourning' altogether because many of us do find meaning and comfort by showing the world in some physical way that we are grieving, that we are saddened, that we are remembering and that we are changed because of the loss of someone special and loved. Fortunately, our culture has kept some of the traditions of mourning from the past, and transformed them, in some cases, very imaginatively, keeping the positive aspects and making them more relevant to how we live today.

http://www.jambase.com/Fans/WidespreadDeadParticles

Jerry Garcia

You might be hard pressed to think of anyone farther removed from the propriety and constrictions associated with the Victorian era than the late Jerry Garcia. Yet, being 'in mourning' was something meaningful to him. He famously wore only black t-shirts following his mother's death. Incidentally, the name of the band 'The Grateful Dead' comes from a folk tale cycle revolving around variations on a theme of a traveller burying or providing funds for the proper burial of a stranger whose body would otherwise be left to the elements. The generous person is then rewarded by the ghost of the 'grateful dead'.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lukas/080103&campaign=rsssrch&source=paul_lukas

Like musicians, athletes are in the public eye, and are well known for the expressions of mourning displayed on their uniforms. Athletes have been quite innovative in developing patches and insignia in addition to wearing black arm bands as pictured above and below.

Courtesy of ESPN Uniform Watcher, Paul Lucas, here are some links to some wonderful patches, decals and caps worn in mourning by sports teams:

A Sleeve patch worn by the Anaheim Angels following the 1999 passing of owner and Singing Cowboy Gene Autry. Another Sleeve patch , this one worn by the Colorado Rockies in1999 in remembrance of the Columbine High School shooting victims.
First responder caps were worn by the New York Mets in 2001, and each year on Sept. 11 in memory of Policemen, firemen, EMS workers, and others who died while responding to the World Trade Center attacks. This Helmet decal was worn by the Texas A&M Aggies in1999
for the students killed by the collapse of the 1999 Aggie Bonfire . For a great article on this subject and a bewildering array of mourning items incorporated into athletic uniforms, visit Lucas' article on the ESPN site at

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lukas/080103&campaign=rsssrch&source=paul_lukas

http://www.daylife.com/photo/03wFfnt6fP473

Members of a team are united in their mourning

http://19thcenturyartofmourning.com/cdv's%20women%20in%20mourning.htm

Widow's Weeds, 19th Century

http://icyfashionstylist.blogspot.com/2007/10/harajuku-101.html

Harajuku Gothic, 2007

Sometimes the elements of mourning clothing are appropriated into street fashion to express feelings of sadness and longing that may not be tied to a specific loss- or maybe just to look cool.

http://www.meupapeldeparedegratis.com.br/

Looking cool always seemed easy for the late Johnny Cash, 'The Man in Black', but that was just part of the story. Here, courtesy of YouTube, Johnny explains why he wore his 'weeds'

"'til things are brighter, I'm the man in black"- Johnny Cash