When you lose someone, it can be impossible to think of anything other than grief, but an unveiling ceremony helps you to have time to process your loss and spend time cherishing the moments you had together. What a precious concept!

Rebecca Gardyn Levington has visited my blog several times. She is a children’s book author, poet, and journalist with a particular penchant for penning both playful and poignant picture books and poems – primarily in rhyme. She is the author of WHATEVER COMES TOMORROW (which has been translated into nine languages and is the winner of a Crystal Kite Honor and a Northern Lights Book Award), AFIKOMAN WHERE’D YOU GO? (A PJ Library Selection), BRAINSTORM!, LITTLE DREIDEL LEARNS TO SPIN, WRITE HERE WRITE NOW, FINDING FORGIVENESS, SOME DAYS I’M THE WIND, and I WILL ALWAYS BE… with seven additional rhyming picture books forthcoming (so far!). Rebecca writes reviews and conducts author interviews monthly for the Picture Book Builders blog. Her award-winning poems and articles have appeared in numerous anthologies, newspapers, and magazines. She lives with her family in Summit, NJ, where she enjoys bouncing on a mini-trampoline, playing Mah Jongg, and eating chocolate-peanut butter ice cream (although not usually at the same time!). Find out more and sign up for Rebecca’s monthly newsletter where she answers questions from readers and offers advice learned throughout her writing journey. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or BlueSky.

I WISH THAT YOU KNEW is a picture book about grief. Here a little girl has lost her grandma and struggles with the loss. Yet everywhere she goes, she is reminded of the good times they spent together. Through an unveiling ceremony (a Jewish custom I hadn’t heard of, but wished everyone actually did!), she is able to move on, as well as hold on. It’s a delicate line to balance, but this is a beautiful expression of love that will surely help many grieving young readers to cope.

Welcome back Rebecca!

Me: I have never heard of an unveiling ceremony. It’s a beautiful tradition. What gave you the idea for this book?

Rebecca: Thank you so much for having me on your blog again, Jena, and for the kind words. It’s always a pleasure to visit!

I’ll talk more about what an unveiling is in the next question, but the inspiration for this book was my Grandma Charlotte, my Gram. I was really lucky because I was born when she was just 46 years old, so I got to have her in my life for almost 40 years and she was truly my best friend. So much of who I am is a result of my relationship with her. Her unconditional support, positive energy, and wise tough-love advice over the years have, without question, shaped how I view the world and myself in it.

Gram passed away in 2013, and in 2023, around the 10-year anniversary of her death, I was missing her so much, and thinking a lot about how much has happened in my life since she died. She never got to see my two sons grow up or see me reinvent myself as a children’s book author and poet. She never got to read any of my books.

And so, I did what I do when I need help grappling with my strong emotions. I wrote a poem. I never initially intended this poem to become anything other than a way for me to process my grief, but as I continued to write and revise, I felt like there was a more universal story coming through me that might help others cope with their own losses. So, I tinkered with it more, created new characters (who have similarities with but aren’t either me or my Gram) and added the setting of the Jewish unveiling ceremony, a custom which is instrumental in helping us process our grief.

Me: For those of us who aren’t Jewish, can you tell us a little bit about the ceremony this book is centered around?

Rebecca: Of course. An unveiling is a Jewish ceremony that marks the day when a loved oneʼs permanent gravestone is erected and “unveiled.” It typically occurs around the first yahrzeit, or the first-year anniversary, of one’s death.

An unveiling takes place at the gravesite of the loved one. It is usually just close relatives and friends who attend, along with a rabbi. The ceremony is typically short and consists of a eulogy, the recitation of a Psalm (such as Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want . . .”), the El Maleh Rahamim prayer (a memorial chant which asks G-d to provide the loved one with peaceful rest), and the removal of a cloth covering the headstone (the physical “unveiling”). If there are at least ten adults present (known in Jewish law as a minyan), the Mourner’s Kaddish, a prayer thanking G-d for his presence and for bringing us peace, is also recited in unison by everyone in attendance.

The unveiling ceremony helps us process our grief in many ways. No matter the circumstances behind a loved one’s passing, the immediate loss is often overwhelming and difficult to accept. By delaying the erection of a gravestone, Jewish tradition offers us the gift of time—the ability to gain our footing and to practice what it will be like living without them. The ceremony itself then offers us some closure. The placement of a permanent grave marker signals that it is time for us to try letting go of some of our sadness. It is time to honor and celebrate our loved one’s life and allow our joyful memories to comfort us as we move forward. Having supportive family and friends nearby reminds us that—no matter how painful it is to say goodbye—we are never alone.

Me: I love the note in the back matter about the custom of leaving stones, rather than flowers, on a grave. Where did that inspiration come from? Have you done that yourself?

Rebecca: This is a very common custom among Jewish people and yes, I’ve done it myself – more times than I wish was necessary. If you ever go to a Jewish cemetery, you will see many stones placed on grave markers.

Some mourners choose a stone that has special significance to the person, one from a location that was meaningful to them when they were alive, for example. But since this practice is simply a custom, and not a religious mandate, there are no rules. And so, I chose for the child in my story to decorate her stone and add the words “I Love You,” as a way of honoring the special relationship she had with her grandmother.

There are various theories about why the practice of leaving stones on graves has become customary among Jews, but the one I like best is that, unlike flowers that eventually die, a stone is solid and permanent. Stones aren’t going anywhere, much like our memories of our loved one. Their spirit, their wisdom, and their love for us (and ours for them) will live in our hearts—always.

Me: I love that you show both the sadness of letting go and the joy of the past in this story. It’s such a delicate balance and you’ve nailed it. Was this manuscript always like the final state from the beginning? Or did this come about through many revisions?

Rebecca: Thank you so much for your kind words, but no, that balance did not exist at all in the initial version. My first draft was extremely sad and sentimental because, again, it was just me spilling all my emotions onto the page.

Thankfully, I had an incredible editor, Jaime Gelman, at Little Bee, who asked me to do an R&R and had two pieces of crucial feedback for me. First, she asked if I could take a step back emotionally, to separate myself from the protagonist, so that we could “center the joy of the relationship, instead of just the sadness of her being gone.” It was helpful to start thinking of the main character as separate from myself and to think about how her participation in the unveiling helped her process her loss.

Second, in the draft I’d sent on sub, I had included the unveiling ceremony simply as a backdrop to the girl’s feelings. But Jaime, brilliantly, asked me to revise with this question in mind: “HOW specifically does the unveiling ritual help us process our grief?” She wanted me to include more of the details of the unveiling ceremony and address how participating in this specific ritual helps the character begin to heal from her grief.

This feedback led me down a rabbit hole of research. While I’d attended several unveilings, I’d never stopped to think through why the ritual exists. As I mentioned above, one of the reasons is to offer us time to get used to life without our loved one before we make the goodbye more permanent with a grave marker.

With this in mind, I revised so the child is both missing her grandmother while also recognizing that the passage of time has been a gift that has given her distance from her loss so NOW (a year later) she is finally ready to start moving forward. As she says:

“It’s time to let go of some of the sad/ and celebrate moments of joy that we had.”

I used the word “some” because we don’t ever lose the sadness, but the gift of time offers us the ability to let go of “some” of it, while still holding on to all of the joy.

Me: It’s been said that manuscripts that deal with grief have been a hard sell since the pandemic. Can you talk about the marketing of this book? Any struggles in getting it published? How did it come to be published with Little Bee Books?

Rebecca: I hadn’t heard that grief books have been a hard sell since the pandemic (and I’m glad I didn’t because maybe it would have kept me from trying to sell this one!).

For me, the issue was more about finding a way to distinguish my book from all the other beautiful books about grief that are already out there. In fact, after I’d done my research on all the comp titles, I’d actually put this manuscript away for a while because I thought it wasn’t special enough to compete.

But after attending a friend’s father’s funeral, I started to think about some of the Jewish traditions we participate in when someone dies. Since the book is about a child reminiscing about all the moments her grandmother has missed during the period of time since she died, it occurred to me that it would make sense to have the story take place a year after the grandmother’s passing, at her unveiling ceremony. I thought maybe the incorporation of this tradition could give my story the angle it needed to stand out from other books about grief.

As it turned out, when Jaime expressed interest in the book, she actually said: “I’ve been looking for an unveiling book” which kinda shocked me (in the best way, of course!). So obviously, this book found its exact right home with the exact right editor at the exact right time. I’m very fortunate.

Me: The illustrations by Alyssa Russell are pitch perfect. The way she shows the grandma’s presence without her actually being there is exquisite. Were there any illustration surprises for you?  Any favorites?

Rebecca: I couldn’t agree more about Alyssa’s illustrations. I mean, the color palette alone is swoon-worthy (I don’t think she knew when she made the book that my favorite color is purple!).

My favorite spread is the one toward the end that shows the grandmother and child walking hand in hand toward the grave marker where the girl is about to place the stone that she’s decorated. As they get closer and closer to the headstone, grandma’s image becomes more transparent, signaling that she is no longer of this world. The text reads:

But…

I want you to know,

I keep you with me.

Your love has helped shape

who I am and will be.

This stanza has been there from the very first draft. It is the core of what I wanted to express to my Grandma Charlotte. That she is always with me, and that her support and wisdom and advice and caring and tough love have all shaped me into the person I am, and will influence me as I move forward into the rest of my life. Seeing Alyssa’s beautiful art combined with my words on this spread makes me cry every time.

Me: What is one thing that surprised you in writing this story?

Rebecca: I think something that surprised me is that how cathartic the process of creating this book was for me in helping me manage my own grief over the loss of my Grandma Charlotte.

Before writing this book, I don’t think I had allowed myself to finish grieving her loss. Not that we ever “finish” missing our loved one, of course, but I think there were a lot of strong emotions surrounding her death that I hadn’t yet been ready to look at, even a decade later.

When Jaime asked me to separate myself from my character, it invited me to look at my own emotions in a more objective way, and with that distance, I was able to more clearly see what I needed in order to heal, to start letting go of some of my sad and to begin embracing all the joy my grandma brought into my life.

I love that. How beautiful. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today Rebecca.

Dear readers, this book publishes next week. Keep an eye out for it. It’s unlike any other book out there that I’ve read dealing with grief and death. It’s a beautiful celebration of life and joy, not just sadness (though yes, it acknowledges the sadness too). It will help many readers (not just young ones) to cope with loss. Trust me when I say, you won’t want to miss this one!