Dad's Eulogy  11/12/09

My father was a complicated man. If he had lived to be 120, I don't think I would have understood him. For a man who read constantly, he wasn't good verbalizing his thoughts and feelings. For a man who seemed to know every joke, he was short on conversation with me. For a man devoted to family, he had a hard time showing his love, For a man who attended shul regularly, he never talked to me about what his religion meant to him or his concept of G-d. For a man who loved to give massages, he rarely received one. For a man who was treasurer of the Holistic Health Center in the 80's with Ann Husch, he rarely tried the holistic modalities and usually refused my requests to give him Healing Touch.

You get the picture.

Therefore, to know my father, I must describe his actions. They say actions speak louder than words, but sometimes you might miss the hidden message of love.

I think much of my Dad's story is typical of his times. First generation American, illiterate mother. One day his brother came home from school and announced he was no longer Yoseph, but Joel. Dad was transformed from Moishe to Maurice. They all did some amount of college. They lived surrounded by their extended family that his father helped to bring over. The Passover seder table extended through several rooms with usually 40 people, the kids on the porch, all cooked from scratch without time saving devices in the basement Passaidic kitchen. He learned the importance of shul and prayer. I have a sense that for my grandparent's world, the shul was the safe place in a strange county where these immigrants understood the language and customs, where they had worth as a person and as a Jew. Outsides those doors was a new, hostile society, inside was the comfort of a 3000 year religion and traditions that sustained them. His devotion to BSKI is unquestionable. His long years of service as officer and board member spanned decades. He never seemed to burn out, attending his last board meeting at 93 just before he left for Miami for his last trip.

I never thought to ask why he always sat in the fourth row on the left aisle, ready to shake everyone's hand as they came down from the bema and say “Yasher Koach”. Was that a place of honor when he was young? Who will carry on that tradition now that he is gone? I notice most younger people don't look up from their prayer books as people go by. One of my sadnesses for the past few years was that Dad's catnaps caused him to miss the opportunity to shake people's hand as they went by.

Dad was from that great generation that came home for dinner every night at the same time, although he was the rare commuter who drove to the suburbs of  East St. Louis every day. I seem to remember the number 35 miles, an incredibly far drive in those days without FM radio, books on tape, cell phones, or expressways. He wanted a helicopter to make it faster. He came home to a kosher hot meal prepared from scratch even though my mother always had her own home based  business. After dinner he had his favorite chair where he read the newspapers. I remember as a small child climbing into his lap asking the words until the letters became words for me. He read to us every night although I never got Goodbye Moon or Dr. Seuss. He read to me from the Golden Bible which I suspect is why I always excelled at Sunday School. I remember my disappointment when we finished the bible and started over again for Harlie who was now my roommate. When we finished that rereading, we moved onto a book on Jewish holidays and customs. Good thing I became an excellent reader and we went to the library every Saturday and had lots of books in the house;  that way I got to read the children's literature myself.

Dad always said the purpose of life was to procreate as it was commanded in the Bible. His children were the reason for his existence. I begged him until he was 92 to write his ethical will so I would know what gave meaning to his life. I believe his Judaism and his children and then grandchildren are the answer to that question.

You see how his actions spoke volumes of how he loved his children.

As a teenager and a young adult during the Depression, he knew the value of a nickel. He could be so “thrifty”, saving every bit of string, schnorring paper clips and rubber bands from the bank. Miriam Raskin was reminiscing Sunday morning about how Dad used to reroll the adding machine tape to use the backside as well as his green typewriter ribbon. (how he loved green using green ink and stationary long before Donald Trump made it the color of success.) Was he cheap, frugal, ahead of his time as a recycler, or never lost the appreciation of the time and energy it took to make the money, the intrinsic value of a possession, and the need to save for a rainy day? We never had nice cars (remember the Checkers? ), took family vacations, or expensive clothes. But, we all went to the college of our choice without having to work or get scholarships and had any medical attention we needed in the days before health insurance. I think that speaks volumes about his and mom's values and support of their children.

He had a fund called “grandfather's yerisha” which means inheritance that treated us to all kinds of special events. For me in high school and college, I could go to any cultural event that I wanted thru grand father's yerisha. (That did not include rock concerts in his definition of culture). I saw Marian Anderson and Louie Armstrong on their farewell tours, went every night to the Muny the week Dame Margot Fontyn and Rudolph Nureyev danced here. For my 21st birthday, I used it to buy the box set of Beethoven's symphonies,  he said to buy something of lasting value. I was in my 30's before I learned that his grandfather left him nothing. He saved the petty cash from Shop City for this fund. Again, his actions showed what his words could not.

He loved the theater. Always talking of seeing Catherine Cornell on Broadway (75cents for the balcony, $1.79 for the good seats). He loved Shakespeare and Gilbert and Sullivan and we always went to see the Doyle Carte when they came to town. His beloved cousin Pearl always tells how he took his 16 year old “ hick” cousin from NJ to her first Broadway show to see Abe Lincoln in America. And he passed this love to his children; our special bond was going to the theater together. Even in his last weeks he kept telling me to have Harlie renew his subscription to Stages for us to enjoy next summer.

Another thing we shared together was going to hockey games in 1968 when the Blues first came to St. Louis. Yes, there was a sport I loved. He got me tickets to every game when these rookies almost won the Stanley Cup; even offered to let me go to Montreal for the finals. For the 4 years I was in college, he clipped every article  in the paper every night and sent it to me every Sunday with a letter typed in green telling me what the family had done that week. I lost interest after 2 years when I no longer knew the team, but I couldn't tell him. Not only would that have meant I might not get a letter, but his devotion doing it for me was another way he showed his love.

He, not my mother, was the correspondent; keeping in touch with people, even Mom's cousins in Israel. He loved writing; got special recognition in school for his talent. Unfortunately, in high school when he helped me with my creative writing assignments, I got lower grades. They didn't  like his Hollywood endings.

This was the man who couldn't verbally express his thoughts to me.

I am sure that everyone here who knew Dad was the recipient of one of his back rubs, foot rubs or massage. Ask Marsha Sterneck. The first thing he did when he entered the sanctuary on Shabbos was to walk over to her back row seat and give her a shoulder rub. How he lamented when he could no longer do that. I used to make bets with myself how short a time it would take him when we went anywhere before he was rubbing someone. We found it embarrassing; the recipient was usually grateful. This is how he reached out to people, the man who had trouble with words.

Don't forget Dad's suntan. I used to call him Zonker, Sr. after the Doonesbury character who was in search of the perfect tan. No amount of melanoma removals deterred him from spending 2-4 hours laying in the sun every day. He was right, that wasn't what killed him.

What did get him in the end? Not the hole in his heart that made him the frail child who outlived his 3 healthy brothers. I have noticed the irony that G-d seems to take away the things you enjoy the most in your old age. First his neuropathology, the man who walked 5 miles to make a bank deposit couldn't walk across the room. Then his thighs got so weak he had trouble getting out of chairs. His hearing loss prevented him from enjoying the theater. His fantastic eyes finally weakened, making reading difficult when he was 93. This last 8 months he couldn't even roll over in bed by himself. He watched each step of his decline, conscious of what it meant. In the end, he was a mind trapped in a body like wilted lettuce. He observed this decay, ending every phone call to me saying “Honey, this is no way to live”.  I can only agree. He suffered enough. He had been blessed with 90 years of good health. May he rest in peace now.

Look down at all the people here, Dad, who loved and honored you. Watch over your family. We are your legacy. May our actions and our love be your greatest achievement.

And Dad, it looks like I got enough words for both of us.

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