Thank God she didn’t come along. (I’d asked Carrie to join me for the stone setting).
“I will if you want, but you’ll have to introduce me to everyone”.
“That’s OK,” said I. “I’ll be back in an hour”. (In and out, I figured it’d be).
Venue for the unveiling was Park’s Cemetery — a home game, if you will. In a drive-by, I could visit Grandma Cele, Grandpa Irv, Grandpa Maisey, Grandma Bogart…the whole mispachah laying in wait. (Ouch). Time permitting it would be a mitzvah. (“Mitvot”, to be exact. Indeed, I was but four stone throws away).
So I drove that beautiful morning, sun shining…blue shirt, camel pants, car top open, packing a yarmulke, down Richmond.
I didn’t have to go, I suppose. It was a friend’s father, but not a close friend. Had I not caught it in the Jewish News I’d never have known. Not like an inner circle thing. Still, back to the Bayard days this went, and once knowing, I couldn’t NOT.
Made my left at Chagrin and my right to the graveyard. (Inside it’s one-way now. Several years, I think. Conventional wisdom has it that, with the digging of additional plots, the pathways narrowed. The real story, I believe, is that this makes it harder for my Aunt Helen to stop by the office each YomTov and complain of the foliage by her mother).
Past the gates I turned right… then a left heading south –eyeing all the while, the landscape —seeking familiar faces that’d be huddling en masse. Had to find the right group. Had to recognize, through my windshield, my friend.
There were no, (excuse the expression), bodies in sight. All the way down the western-most artery I drove…until … when I thought I could drive no further … in the distance I found even newer land…expanded acreage…and, indeed, the only people in the cemetery.
So I parked the car — single file on the right — so others could pass
And I walked toward the group — donning my skull cap in stride —and I noticed:
THESE WERE NOT MY PEOPLE.
My friend wasn’t there; her sister wasn’t there. Our friends weren’t there!
Worse than that (in a way)— these were people I knew. Nice people.
Same last name. Same (somewhat roots). No relation.
This was someone I knew back in Hebrew School. Who had kids that knew my kids.
There was no turning back.
So I said my hellos…
And I stood toward the rear…
And intrinsically I took note of those that had to be thinking “What the F is Bogart doing here?”
There were some that I knew, of course: a sprinkling not so much of friends as acquaintances. Warm acquaintances— treasures of a life in one town.
“It’s so nice of you to be here,” said one.
“I felt bad I missed the funeral.”
And then it began. First the rabbi, then the unveiling, then the son saying a few words.
Briefly he spoke, maybe three or four minutes. Sharing stories of his Dad, bits of wisdom he’d preached, his short talk was quite moving.
I stood there feeling enriched to have been there…to have seen a side of this classmate I’d never quite known…to have heard his remembrances.
And I cried, just a bit, for all sons that have lost fathers.