זיכרונו לברכה

Four weeks ago my mom phoned from her nursing home to tell me that my dad was refusing to eat. I think she wanted me to call him and tell him that he must have his lunch, but -- given his compromised hearing -- I couldn't see any chance of that happening at all, and there had to be a reason for his refusal anyway.  Prophet and I got in the car and drove to New Jersey to see what was going on.

When we got to his room, we found my dad asleep in his chair. He was in the most uncomfortable position imaginable, but I didn't want to awaken him just because I happened to walk in, so I sat down to see what would happen. Prophet had no such qualms. He immediately leaped into my dad's lap and began kissing him, licking his face enthusiastically. You might think that a 90+ pound dog would not be welcome in the lap of a frail 91-year old man. But if you thought that, you didn't know my dad. He woke up with a smile and then began laughing in enjoyment. After Prophet climbed back down, we had a nice visit. My mom came in a minute later and was happy to see his good mood. My dad tried to eat some soup (without much success) and then he went to the gym with the physical therapist.

The next day the home informed my sister that it was time for my dad to move from assisted living to the nursing care floor. We began arranging for him to be my mom's roommate. Before that could happen, though, they determined that he needed an emergency room visit. He was transported by ambulance to the hospital and admitted as an in-patient. He was kind of happy about that. He felt that the doctors could figure out what was wrong with him and make him better. He was joking with the nurses and asking questions about the wiring of his hospital room. That's right. He engineered that entire wing of the hospital.

By Saturday he wasn't speaking. His eyes would open halfway, he would pick up his head as if to say something, then close his eyes and put his head back down.  I held his hand and told him that we had everything under control. I told him he had done everything right, that we were all okay, and that we would take care of my mom. It didn't seem to reassure him. He remained agitated, as if he had something important to say, but that he could get it out.

Sunday he was no longer opening his eyes. It looked to me now as though he was just trying to get a breath of air. It looked as though he was drowning. It occurred to me that this was what was happening the day before, too. My daughter sat with him for hours, telling him what was going on with her and with her family. The hospital staff acknowledged that their treatment was not making him better, only more uncomfortable. They asked if we wanted to switch to "compassionate" care, meaning they would try to ease his discomfort. We agreed.

He left us the next morning. I had asked the rabbi of their synagogue to visit my mom. The rabbi got the word of the changed purpose of his visit just before going into my mom's room. She really appreciated his presence and his words. She was not happy that my dad left before her.

I remember that day as a flurry of minutiae. Phoning the funeral home to figure out if he had prearranged. (He had not.) Phoning multiple cemeteries to figure out the reference to burial plots in his will. Arranging communication between the hospital, undertaker, cemetery and rabbi. In between, though, I had time to look through the autobiographical writing my dad had been busy with the last
few years and sorting through old photos.  I put up a post or two on Facebook to let people know.

Meeting with the rabbi was a kind of catharsis. My brother, my sister, my wife, and I all got to share some reminiscences. This rabbi arrived at my parents' synagogue around the time they were no longer strong enough to go to Shabbat service every week, so he didn't really know them (or us) He had heard my mom's reputation as a pillar of the shul, leading the bikkur holim committee and the interracial justice committee,  as well as running the Meals on Wheels program for the entire town. (Which she continued doing until she was older than most of the elderly recipients.) My dad, though, was a stranger to him. We explained that dad - who was never bar mitzvahed - had served for years on the synagogue's ritual committee, probably so that he could be an usher and not have to sit down!
We told him about dad doing the electrical engineering for Newark Airport, the lower level of the George Washington Bridge, the third tube of the Lincoln Tunnel, and the B&O lift bridge over the Arthur Kill. And we told him that dad designed the wiring for the room he died in at St. Barnabas Hospital.

The funeral home was less happy. Most of that visit had to do with reviewing the contract and paying. Somebody had to check my father's body (to see if it was really him?) so my wife and I did that. When I was a boy my dad was six-feet and imposing. Over the last twenty years, he has grown shorter and weaker. In his coffin, he looked smaller than ever. But he didn't show as much pain in his face as he had the last two times I saw him.

Riding in a limousine is not something my family does. We never did it for the funerals of any of my grandparents. My siblings and I never went to a prom. But it occurred to me that transporting my mom from her nursing home to a cemetery in one of our cars was probably a bad idea. So we all drove to the nursing home and then rode down to the cemetery for the graveside service in a limousine with my mom.

The ground was wet. We stayed a distance away while the workers pumped water out of the grave.
During the funeral, the workers kept a carpet suspended over the grave's floor so we wouldn't see it filling back up with water. When my dad was in his seventies, he frequently served in an honor guard for funerals of veterans. Apparently the armed forces were stretched so thin that they couldn't provide active-duty servicemen for the wave of departing World War 2 vets. The US Navy provided an honor guard for dad, though. They read a proclamation, played taps, took the flag from the coffin, and presented it to my mom.

The rabbi's eulogy was thoughtful, reassuring, and showed that he really listened. He told stories about my dad's care for my mom, love of us, professional reputation, and skeptical mind. And he framed these within a story about the questions each of us will be asked when we appear before the Throne. And, of course, he sang El Malei Rahamim.

The crazy part of that day was that we ran back to the Bronx after dropping off my mom and then back out to New Jersey again. Prophet was in his crate all day because a crew of tradespeople were doing work in our house, so we wanted to let him out and feed him before returning to have dinner with friends who couldn't make it to the funeral, and then going to the nightly minyan at my parents' synagogue. Under different circumstances, people come to the home of the mourners to visit, and pray minchah and maariv.  I was certain that my mom would be too tired for all that. But I also knew she would feel better if we - her children - said Kaddish. So my brother, my sister, my brother's wife, Kaddish-sayers. Several of them knew my parents, so that was nice. The service itself? Not so much. Loud-mouthed mavens insisted on racing ahead of the person who they themselves had asked to lead.
my sister's boyfriend, my wife, and I all went to pray with the regular

The next day we had invited people to my mom's room at the nursing home to pay their respects and the rabbi came and led minchah. That was a much better experience. And I wrote the rabbi thanking him for everything:

I may not be able to express my gratitude as clearly as I would like, but I think it’s better if I try while everything is still fresh in my mind:  

You listened to us so carefully and heard us so clearly. You summarized the most important points and folded them by means of stories into the framework of another story about the questions we will be asked before the throne. You understood and conveyed - subtly - the differences between my mother’s commitment to belief and to observance and my father’s. You included everybody. You drew in a secondary motif about the prophetic voice, my father’s name, and the name of our dog.

All this is qualitatively different than my experience with graveside rabbinical talk in my youth. But it is also orders of magnitude deeper and richer than my experience of graveside rabbinical talk today.

I also want to thank you for the suggestion that we attend the regular minyan last night at Temple Beth Shalom. Jon, Hilde, Zaydah, Doug, Judith and I all went.  I think it was reassuring to my mom.

Each time I have made a request of you, you responded immediately. I appreciate that more than I can say.

 We skipped Friday and Saturday in observance of the Sabbath. Sunday the room stayed full with family and with friends of my mother, brother and sister. I led the minchah, which I think went okay. My mom was happy, anyway. She said she was glad I still remembered how to do it.

Several of my friends expressed some disappointment that we hadn't invited them to the funeral or the wake. Explaining how we did things seemed beside the point, so we invited people to our home
the following Thursday. A good number of people showed up, too, including people who traveled from Brooklyn, Manhattan and parts of the Bronx that are inconvenient by bus and train.

I keep looking at old photos that remind me of my dad when he was younger and stronger and a giant to me. I keep reading his self-deprecating stories. I keep discovering myself in tears without any apparent external trigger. I guess this will last a good long time.