The Quiet of the Cemetery

So yesterday was a continuation of the holiday -- Christmas -- since it fell on Sunday this year.  Wifey wanted to see a movie for her birthday, but somehow never got out of park until later in the day.  But we DID have a family obligation -- my father in law's "unveiling" -- the time when you view the grave marker for the first time.

It was a gorgeous December Miami winter day.  We piled into Wifey's SUV, and I drove -- and went the wrong way.  For some reason, my brain remembers the cemetery as located between Kendall and Sunset Drive -- it's not, it's between Sunset and Miller.  So after enduring the predicted taunts from my modern Ds ("Dad -- there's a thing called GPS -- even better, a thing called Waze") we made our way there, and parked.  Wifey and I went inside to ask for a map -- we hadn't been since last year, and weren't sure where the grave was.  The Ds walked around outside -- checking out the really big machers' walls -- seeing names of the lost grandparents and parents of many of their school friends.

We found our way -- a 5 minute walk.  The head stone was there -- newly polished, you could see -- the grass completely grown in around it where we last saw the filled in hole.  We each placed stones on it, per Jewish tradition, and then read aloud kaddish, the prayer for the dead.  You're really supposed to have a minyan -- 10 men -- when you do this, but, hey -- we figured it's the spirit of the thing that matters.

We took a very sad break, to walk across the small road, to see an enclave of stones of a family  I knew -- the Epsteins.  Murray was a PI lawyer -- a friend of my partner Paul -- a few years older.  We referred him a case or two.  His beloved son Alan, a Palmetto grad, like the Ds, was killed, along with two other UF freshman, in a rollover crash on the Turnpike, in December of 1998.  That haunted me the entire 9 years the Ds went back and forth to Gville.  Wifey made fun of me for often making the trip with them, and then flying home, but Alan's case hit too close to home.

Murray died a few years later -- young -- in his 50s.  His wife Cheryl followed a few years after that.  I think one son survives.

Anyway, we walked back to my father in law's grave, and Wifey asked us each to share a memory about her father.  Unlike some awkward ceremonies like this, where relatives couldn't think of anything to share (the classic joke "His brother was WORSE!" comes to mind), the Ds chimed right in.  For D2, it was being a little girl going fishing with her grandpa at Holiday Park.  Richard would hook a fish, and hand the fishing rod to D2, making her think she had caught one.

D1 recalled how her grandpa would drive her to and attend ALL of her performances -- dance, piano -- you name it, and watch her so proudly.  Wifey recalled being a teenager and walking along the beach on a trip to Tel Aviv -- noticing all of the women looking at her dashingly handsome father -- and feeling so proud of that.

For me, it was the joy and wonder he had about the Ds -- always a loving, very involved grandpa.  One of my grandfathers was already dead when I was born, and the other would die when I was only 4, so I never got to experience what the Ds did, with such a loving, wonderful presence in their lives...

We walked back to the car, and I thought about the words of my maternal grandmother, who would always answer complaints about the craziness of life with the same refrain: "You want quiet?  In the tomb it is quiet."

We stopped to pick up some food, and then headed for home.  D1 left -- she had dinner with friends in Wynwood.  She invited D2, but she opted out.  Instead, Wifey found a Pay Per View movie we agreed on: "Sully."  D1 had seen it and panned it.  We all enjoyed it very much -- causing us to question D1's future as a movie critic...

Wifey took a photo of the gravestone, to show her mother.  My suegra was supposed to go along, but she's in the rehab hospital for several more weeks.  I assume we'll take her back to see her husband's grave in several weeks.  She'll break down, I'm sure.  She loved my father in law completely.

In the mean time, the year draws near to a close.  We have lunch today, all of us, with Victoria, our Merrill Lynch representative.  This may be the final one -- I plan to switch our accounts to the do it yourself Merrill Lynch.  It really makes no sense to pay hundreds for a trade when the online platform charges $6 or less.  But I need to overcome the inertia that keeps me from making changes.

I guess I like most things quiet.  Just maybe not as quiet as the cemetery.