Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin (7 page)

songs that he reads like dosage instructions.

He reads from the
Song of Songs
even faster as though there is a schedule to keep and melody

would only serve to slow things down, beauty

would only get in the way.

He calls up Irwin to give a eulogy. He has

cards—prepared, he says, so he would not fal-

ter. He means it. He means everything he says

and it is all beautiful. He doesn’t look at the

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cards, cries, talks about that which is lost, how good and kind she was, his love for his aunt,

the matriarch of the family, her strength, her

support. He means every word and I hold

tears but they are not for her. They are not

for her.

I turn and Lee is looking at me. She quietly

says she has no idea who he is talking about

but it isn’t the woman she knew. It isn’t the

woman I know either. Not at all. She holds

my hand. Irwin steps from the lectern, shak-

ing his head. “I just loved her, is all. I just loved her,” as he moves to his seat. And the service

ends.

The two men in black tell us it is time. We

are to move to the graveside, at the tent. The

family can take the limousine. The kids and

I walk with Lee and Erika pushing my mother

in turns. In two minutes we are at the grass

and across a short field of six by twelve inch

bronze plaques laid flat upon the ground,

marking the heads of graves.

In the green field is a reflection of stark gray marble slabs longer each than a body, wider

than a coffin, nine widths long and two across:

an interruption of cloud in the grass. All but

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the last one, the side close to us. It is open and concrete. Next to it, the tent. About fifty feet further to the right a dull yellow backhoe. On

the grass, attached to its shovel, by four taut

chains, is a concrete slab and next to it, a marble one: another cloudy hole in the green

earth. And all around, six by twelve bronze

place-markers of people who were.

My mother stays at the roadside with Erika.

We walk to the tent. There are folding chairs

beneath it, three rows of six, and they sit on

several pieces of plywood. Everyone sits. In

the front row, my grandfather, my aunt, my

uncle, and my father.

The casket arrives on a draped cart pushed

by men in blue workshirts. The cart is posi-

tioned over the open bunker and the drapes

hide the hole beneath. The rabbi starts rap-

idly again and a switch is moved on the cart.

The coffin descends slowly to settle into the

pit.

Sef has stayed with me the entire time. My

son, no further than arm’s reach. Lee at my

side. My brother close. They all retreat. Lee

tells me she is going to go stay by my mother,

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that she needs her and I have no doubt she is

right.

I am by the grave, by myself except for the

workers. Watching.

They move mechanisms at the wheels and

the cart unlocks itself from the grave, is

pulled away. The rabbi continues, holds a

baggy of dirt from Israel so that the daugh-

ter of Zion can be buried in Jewish soil, in

Florida, in this bunker, covered in marble.

The workers leave.

The two men in black tell me I must move.

Those seated under the tent, milling, pacing,

they must move. The tent must move as well.

The backhoe rumbling, suddenly, and the slab

is leaving the ground, swinging from the

bucket by its chains.

The tent is picked up and walked by its four

corners, the chairs are taken away and I help

fold them. The plywood is relocated from the

graveside to in front of the backhoe tracks.

More plywood, uncovered as the top sheets

are removed, are relocated as well, making a

narrow road for the tracks from where it sits

to the vault.

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I look into the hole. It is not right that she

is not buried, that the full measure of soil

there is only a baggy of Holy Land. There is

no shovel. There is no pile of soil. I ask the

rabbi, “Is it alright if I throw some dirt in? It doesn’t feel right if I don’t.” His answer is, “Of course.”

I crouch over the grave, look down, reach

to my right and grab a handful of sandy soil,

talk quietly, drop grit as I speak.

“I don’t know why you never treated us the

way you treated everyone else. Apparently

you were very good to many people. I don’t

understand. But I thank you for what you did

give me. You showed me how not to treat peo-

ple. I know how to be good and kind because

you showed me what it was like when some-

one isn’t. How much it hurts. And thank you.

If not for you, I wouldn’t have Sef or Alek.

Here. Here is the only dirt in your grave by a

relative. Just me. Goodbye.”

And with that, my handful rains down. I

stand up, stand back as the men in the black

suits ask me to watch out. Here comes the

slab.

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As I back up, Irwin comes up to me. I think

of his words. My eyes begin to tear. “Every-

one will miss her,” he says, and puts his hand

on my shoulder.

I am surprised to be talking to him. I am

surprised to be crying.

“That’s not why I’m crying.” I say this and

am shocked I have spoken but more so over

what words have come out, that I am being

honest. I continue as he looks at me. “I hear

how good she was to everyone and how won-

derful and I want to know how come I was

cheated out of that. Why did she treat us so

badly? Why did everyone get this loving

grandmother and we got nothing. I’m crying

for me. Not her.”

He apologizes to me. He means it. Not for

how I feel, but for his lack of understanding,

for her. He continues. “I don’t know why she

treated you the way she did. She wasn’t like

that with anyone else but you and your

brother and your mother. Your mother is a

wonderful person. I know her and Franky a

long time and I never understood it.” This he

says shaking his head. “It was unfair and I

never understood it.”

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I appreciate this and he leaves me with a

hug. My tears become sparse as my brother

approaches to me. Irwin spoke with him as

well and the conversation, while ending the

same way, started quite differently. He had

no idea who we were. We were never men-

tioned. Not by the grandparents. Not by my

parents. Not in his memory.

He was amazed to see not because he was

surprised at our presence but at our existence.

After stepping on that with my brother, he

was kind enough not to repeat it to me. That

I found out later is of no consequence to his

kindness and I will always appreciate his can-

dor and restraint in a time of such difficulty

for him.

I am shocked. How does a parent not men-

tion their children? In forty-two years? My

tears dry. They are used up. I am empty and,

suddenly, much more alone.

The backhoe is over the grave, the lid,

swinging, guided by workers, descends and

my father talks to the men in the black suits

about the guarantee of watertightness of the

vault. They explain there is no such guaran-

tee. There never was one and especially not

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in Florida. Gaskets? No. Seal? No. His face

drops. He wants her sealed and safe.

Permanent.

I think fallout shelter. I think Ziplock.

Tupperware.

One blue work shirt leans over to adjust the

top so it lowers just right. He jumps into the

vault to undo the chains and the backhoe

retreats, beeping.

As it does, the driver misses the plywood

and runs over plaque after plaque, hitting the

corners, pressing them into the ground as

they pop catercornered into the air one after

another until the row becomes a line of

bronze diagonals. I had been doing my best

not to step on the head-plaques.

Now comes the marble cover. It too is

brought over at the expense of plaques and

noise and I watch it put into place, positioned

perfectly before I walk away. All is done.

Erika will drive the van back. My mother

will ride with Lee. I have the kids. All back to my grandfather’s house. Twelve-thirty.

Once back, Erika is busy putting the food

out, all cakes and sweets. I was told I need not bring anything. Nothing was needed or

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wanted. Food is supposed to be supplied for

the people sitting shiva. I should have brought

food anyway.

Here are cakes. Cookies. Breads and crack-

ers. No food to sustain. Here are also card-

board boxes printed to look like wooden

benches for the family to sit on. Within the

hour my father has crushed one under him.

Cakes, cookies, and breads.

My brother walks by me, asks quickly, qui-

etly for whom the funeral we attended was

for. He did not know that woman either. He

walks on.

We talk. I introduce my wife to Arial and

they talk shop at the table about their prac-

tices, laws, medicine, and get along well. There is wine and my aunt drinks one, two three

cups nearly immediately. I know this because

she counted them out loud and had five

within the next two hours. It showed.

Erika is busy, stays busy, out of the way. The

siblings have moved to the far, deep corner of

the kitchen and are discussing in hushes. We

talk with the cousins. There are others.

Soon, my aunt is drunk, the conversation

is loud, my wife and children are hungry. It

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is nearly five in the afternoon. I say my good-

byes. Hug my mother, my father. Take my

cousin’s email addresses and phone numbers,

thank Irwin, and say goodbye to Erika. We

head to Lee’s sisters where we will spend the

night.

We change. Where to go for dinner? The

Whale’s Rib in Lighthouse Point, but five

minutes away from the house. It is crowded,

inexpensive, comfortable and, I think, what

we need this evening. We sit, wait for our

table and talk.

I ask Lee questions. I ask how parents

neglect to ever tell relatives about their chil-

dren, how a grandparent treats some grand-

children well and leaves others ignored.

I tell her, today, I feel cut loose. Today, I

have less of a family behind me. Today, less

of a family in my past, that fewer people care.

I feel I was deluded. I feel the family I have

chosen, a blessing, and those I was born with

. . . I do not finish. I do not know how I feel.

Maybe I do and don’t want to say.

I know my father as weak. Did he ever talk

about the lack of parity? He seemed, always,

to simply accept all as it was, to question

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nothing his family did. Perhaps this is unfair.

I don’t know. I have been undefended,

unmentioned, unknown. As though I was not

there.

We sit. Lee talks to me and I am glad of it.

I listen closely and ask her to write down

what she has told me. I want to see it, to read

it, again and again. To know it was not just

me. She did and I include it here. It is a bit

more than I had anticipated. It is

unedited.

I felt I needed to add my two cents to

your essay. I was a participant also.

How sad for her. How much hate

can cheat you out of life. This poor,

ignorant woman who was afraid her

daughter-in-law was after her money

cheated herself out of life’s joys and

died bitter and hating. Although she

lived to a very ripe old age of 94, she

cheated herself from knowing and

loving not only her grandchildren,

but her great-grandchildren. How

horribly sad for her. In her worry

about being robbed, she not only

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cheated herself, but three generations

behind her. She cheated my husband

and his brother from having a grand-

mother who loved them. They also

cheated themselves out of knowing

their children, grandchildren and

great-grandchildren. How sad is

that?

My children, her great-grandchil-

dren, who are lucky enough to know

their great-grandparents, do not like

them. They are duly compensated,

however, in having the loving grand-

parents that my husband and his

brother do not.

So who did she hurt with her hate?

Let’s see . . . her son, his wife, and their

two sons. But the list does not end

here. It also includes others in the

family who are baffled by this hatred.

The non-understanding that was

prevalent at her funeral. Questions

unanswered as to why this had

occurred.