BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Letter to Basil:
When I was about thirty-five or so I went to the cemetery to visit the graves of my grandfather and several other relatives who are buried in a landsman section of Mt.
Hebron in Flushing. Our site is a nice one, on a hill facing Flushing Meadow Park, the lake, and in the distance the city can be seen. There are about twenty-five
Katz' buried there.
I arrived at the cemetery and had a map, the location marked by Section, Row and Grave Number, but Mt.
Hebron is very large and I had difficulty finding the site. A man, bearded and hatted -- I assumed a religious man -- approached me and offered to lead me to the site. How nice, I thought, and I followed him through the high grass and down the road, across a tiny bridge, and then up a little hillside to the site. I "introduced" him to my Great-Grandfather, Abraham and his wife,
Zipporah; and my grandfather, Aaron, and his wife, Masha; and my Uncle Max and Aunt Sylvia; and all the cousins and aunts and uncles, most of whom I had never met in life, but had "met" and learned about them, at their gravesides at Mt.
Hebron.
As we spoke I came to understand that he was a professional mourner -- I had seen them before but none had ever approached my father or me when we went to the cemetery together, because the only times we ever went to Mt.
Hebron were for
someone's funeral, and of course, there were plenty of rabbis and mourners at those funerals, which were a family gathering of sort, and which paradoxically were usually almost pleasant affairs, as we would bury one of the cousins, who invariably would have been in their nineties and each of whom had lived fruitful and eventful lives. Even the black sheep of the family, Bernie
Shatskin, a lawyer, who anticipated the
machinations of Bernie Madoff is buried there, and, I guess forgiven all his sins.
The man, by now my good friend, suggested that I might like to say Kaddish for my grandparents and uncle and aunt. I understood that a gratuity would be expected and agreed that Kaddish would be a good idea. He offered me a yarmulke and I put it on so that he would begin. As he got into the prayers and then the
Kaddish I was overwhelmed by a deep sadness for all that had been lost, for the history of the
Katz', for the thousand years of struggle that had led us to America and then without gratitude we had given up our heritage, given up our birthright, like Jacob, and then we had given up all of our
millenniums of Jewish heritage .
I began to sob uncontrollably, I wasn't able to catch my breath, I could think only of my ancestors wandering from the East and finding themselves in the frozen waste of Russia, but carrying with them all of the traditions of the Jews, within the
struggle, the
pogroms, and I cried, choking on my inability to
breathe. I noticed that my friend, the mourner was standing by me, patiently waiting, and I thought that he was so wonderful, standing by me, making sure that I wouldn't have a heart attack and die right on the spot, right atop my grandfather's grave, and that this man, previously a stranger to me, was waiting, watching over me, making sure that would be okay -- and then I remembered the honorarium and without a sound I stuffed a ten dollar bill into his hand, but he waited again, just standing beside me, and I couldn't talk, my throat constricted, my tongue swollen in my mouth, without speech and he, this angel in disguise, was still standing, silent beside me...what a wonderful man, I thought.
Finally, after more time, he did speak-- "Mister," he said, "Mister, could I have mine yarmulke?"
mekReply from Basil:
I understand what you felt Mike, but I do not have those feelings
myself. In any case, not about the history of my family up to and
including my parents. I just don't connect. But that does not mean I
don't have similar feelings.
When my grandmother died we had the funeral at the Riverside Chapel in
Brooklyn which I'm sure you know of. What I knew was that my grandmother
had made a friend of a man at the old age home she was staying at. This
man was a cantor in his earlier life and demanded that he sing kaddish
for my grandmother.
We had never met him before and when he showed up we
were astonished at his appearance. He was in his seventies. His hair was
died black. His eyebrows were plucked and penciled. His cheeks were
rouged. He wore a dark cloak. He was obviously not gay. He was as much a
performer as a cantor.
If his appearance was astonishing his voice was
even more so. His singing voice was more of a harsh croaking even though
every Hebrew word of kaddish was understandable. It was as if he was
singing not only for my grandmother but for every Jew who ever died. The
power in his singing was enormous. For that I could not hold back the
tears and I couldn't understand why I was crying.
