stitched-on eyes and paying no attention to what was going on around her. My nephews—Nate, who was almost fourteen, and Dave, who was ten—sat between Phil and me. The boys wore suits and ties and looked solemn and blank faced. Becky sat in the row in front of us. Ruth had no other siblings, and both of Becky and Ruth’s parents were dead.
Most of the people in the small room sitting in front of the covered coffin were cops, a few were Ruth’s relatives, and there were some mutual friends, including Jeremy and his wife Alice, Gunther, Mrs. Plaut, Anita, and Violet.
The doctors had been treating Ruth for three years, and she had just kept fading away, a different diagnosis pronounced by each specialist. Phil had refused an autopsy. He didn’t care what had killed his wife. He cared only that she was dead.
Phil owned a funeral plot in a cemetery in Glendale. It was a few hundred yards from where our father and mother were buried. Phil’s former partner, Steve Seidman, had handled the funeral arrangements, pulled strings, called in favors to get everything done quickly.
There was a shiny boxlike podium of dark wood on the platform behind the coffin. Since my brother and his family attended no synagogue or church, he wanted no last-minute pieced-together generic eulogy by a clergyman of any cloth. Jeremy said he would be happy to read a poem. Phil asked Becky to say a few words and did the same with Nate, telling him only if he wanted to.
Phil started the funeral service by saying only, “Thanks for coming. My wife, the mother of my children, the sister of Becky, the friend of all of you here, is gone. I don’t know where she went. Not in that box. She spent a long time dying and too short a time living. She left a note.”
He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and took a very deep breath. His hand automatically went up to his tie to loosen it as he did every working day. But he stopped himself, unfolded the sheet, and read:
“Phil, David, Nate and Lucy. Love each other as I have loved you. Live and make me proud of you. Grieve, but not too long. Remember me, but not with sadness.”
Phil folded the sheet and returned it to his pocket. He looked down at the podium and placed both palms flat on it.
“That’s it,” he said. His voice didn’t break, but it came close.
Becky and Nate spoke briefly, both saying they would miss her, that she was a good wife, sister and mother, and that she would be remembered.
Jeremy said he would like to read his poem at the cemetery and since Phil had no plans to speak at the burial, he agreed.
The sun was shining in the small cemetery in Glendale. We huddled around the casket which was perched on two low wooden sawhorses next to the open hole.
Jeremy, massive in a suit and tie, which I had never before seen him wear, moved to the podium and said, “This is ‘A Melody for Ruth.’”
And then he read:
There is no end but death.
We look for start, middle and end
To give our lives a diameter,
Controllable limits that send
Us a feeling of security
Suggesting an order
That may not be there.
If there is a border,
We create it; and sense
Is just a matter
Of which story we sing
And whose song
You remember the melody of.
And we know the truth.
We will remember the Song of Ruth.
When the casket was covered, I told Phil that I’d come over to the house later. Lucy clung to his neck, asleep.
Forest Lawn Cemetery was also in Glendale, just a few miles from the small cemetery where Ruth was now buried, a few miles in distance but in another dimension.
Forest Lawn is 303 acres of smooth green lawn with no tombstones—just bronze tablets. It does have mausoleums for the famous and wealthy who want and can afford them. Forest Lawn is surrounded by the world’s largest wrought-iron fence and gate. The $4,500,000 mausoleum-columbarium, inspired by the Camposanto in Genoa, rises in terraces not far from Babyland, where only infants are buried. Buried or sealed in
Most of the people in the small room sitting in front of the covered coffin were cops, a few were Ruth’s relatives, and there were some mutual friends, including Jeremy and his wife Alice, Gunther, Mrs. Plaut, Anita, and Violet.
The doctors had been treating Ruth for three years, and she had just kept fading away, a different diagnosis pronounced by each specialist. Phil had refused an autopsy. He didn’t care what had killed his wife. He cared only that she was dead.
Phil owned a funeral plot in a cemetery in Glendale. It was a few hundred yards from where our father and mother were buried. Phil’s former partner, Steve Seidman, had handled the funeral arrangements, pulled strings, called in favors to get everything done quickly.
There was a shiny boxlike podium of dark wood on the platform behind the coffin. Since my brother and his family attended no synagogue or church, he wanted no last-minute pieced-together generic eulogy by a clergyman of any cloth. Jeremy said he would be happy to read a poem. Phil asked Becky to say a few words and did the same with Nate, telling him only if he wanted to.
Phil started the funeral service by saying only, “Thanks for coming. My wife, the mother of my children, the sister of Becky, the friend of all of you here, is gone. I don’t know where she went. Not in that box. She spent a long time dying and too short a time living. She left a note.”
He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and took a very deep breath. His hand automatically went up to his tie to loosen it as he did every working day. But he stopped himself, unfolded the sheet, and read:
“Phil, David, Nate and Lucy. Love each other as I have loved you. Live and make me proud of you. Grieve, but not too long. Remember me, but not with sadness.”
Phil folded the sheet and returned it to his pocket. He looked down at the podium and placed both palms flat on it.
“That’s it,” he said. His voice didn’t break, but it came close.
Becky and Nate spoke briefly, both saying they would miss her, that she was a good wife, sister and mother, and that she would be remembered.
Jeremy said he would like to read his poem at the cemetery and since Phil had no plans to speak at the burial, he agreed.
The sun was shining in the small cemetery in Glendale. We huddled around the casket which was perched on two low wooden sawhorses next to the open hole.
Jeremy, massive in a suit and tie, which I had never before seen him wear, moved to the podium and said, “This is ‘A Melody for Ruth.’”
And then he read:
There is no end but death.
We look for start, middle and end
To give our lives a diameter,
Controllable limits that send
Us a feeling of security
Suggesting an order
That may not be there.
If there is a border,
We create it; and sense
Is just a matter
Of which story we sing
And whose song
You remember the melody of.
And we know the truth.
We will remember the Song of Ruth.
When the casket was covered, I told Phil that I’d come over to the house later. Lucy clung to his neck, asleep.
Forest Lawn Cemetery was also in Glendale, just a few miles from the small cemetery where Ruth was now buried, a few miles in distance but in another dimension.
Forest Lawn is 303 acres of smooth green lawn with no tombstones—just bronze tablets. It does have mausoleums for the famous and wealthy who want and can afford them. Forest Lawn is surrounded by the world’s largest wrought-iron fence and gate. The $4,500,000 mausoleum-columbarium, inspired by the Camposanto in Genoa, rises in terraces not far from Babyland, where only infants are buried. Buried or sealed in
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