My father's bones went flying through the air

October 28, 1:18 PMSpiritual Life ExaminerRabbi Ben Kamin

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He died young and hard some thirty-three years ago, playing handball against doctor’s orders at the local community center, characteristically defiant of the first (possibly two, we’re not sure) cardiac events that had slowed him down in his early forties.  This time, the myocardial infarction was so massive and sudden that, thankfully, he never knew what hit him.  The force of his impact on the court floor was so powerful that his eyeglass frames cut into his forehead; there was blood about the scene as my mother and I arrived and saw his muscular and bulky figure hidden under a sheet and he was still at last. 

He was buried quickly, in accordance with the observant Jewish tradition, but “on condition.”  As my younger brother Sam and I stood over the open wound of the earth in a Cincinnati cemetery less than twenty-four hours after our father had fallen and we painfully recited the Aramaic kaddish memorial prayer, we understood that this was a temporary grave.  A heavy vault was placed over the simple box as the wind howled and our younger sister Tami, only 12, was gently walked around nearby stones by relatives while the dreadful cranes worked and men droned and our mother stood in shock.  The vault was buried over the box because our father’s remains were to be removed someday and returned to his native Israel.

Meanwhile, I took a ride across the sky with my Dad and it is well with him.

We three children have all suffered (as any family would and so many have) in our private ways, and we have not done well by one another.  I am certain that my brother, who was 16 at the time of this tragedy, has known the most torment.  He most resembled our dad in athleticism and temperament and, being a male teenager (I was 23 then), emulated and required him most grievously.  My brother needed something more out of his big brother in all the years since but the six years between us, geography, a litany of resentments, and some missed opportunities on my part to “be present” have contributed to his sadness.  We both could have used our father to negotiate some things.

On Monday, October 26, my father’s remains were disinterred from his lonely grave in Cincinnati.  The arrangements were supervised by my brother Sam, who has been living in Israel for years now, and who kept me informed by email transmissions.  Our mother, who recently returned to our native Israel after over a half-century here in the United States, has also relayed the unfolding events via phone calls.  Circumstances prevented me from being in Israel at the cemetery today where our father was reburied, at last, in his own soil.  Poignantly, my mother remarked on the telephone, “Daddy is home.”  Hope that’s true, Dad.

For me, the last three days, as I went about my business in Southern California, separated emotionally across some layers from my family members in Israel, a certain bittersweet disposition set in.   I kept seeing, and dreaming, of my father’s bones flying through the air.  I have been unable to coordinate the location of his restless, mighty, and poetic soul with that now ancient set of particles, dust, and bone that a second set of cranes came and dissembled and re-boxed and shipped and so on.  I am genuinely happy for the peace that the bones now give to my mother and brother in Israel, for they dwell there and can pray and visit and feel connected.

Meanwhile, I took a ride across the sky with my Dad and it is well with him.

To the memory of Jeff I. Kamin.

www.benkamin.com