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My Father’s Place (May 2009)
 (This piece is dedicated to Alvin W. Finestone, z”l)

If you didn’t know it was there, you would drive right by. There is no sign, no special gate to mark the entrance. A bicycle shop across the street is your only landmark. To the right, there is a salvage yard with rotting cars gleaming in the sun. To the left, an old gas station lies abandoned. The cars and their occupants drive past, oblivious to the small patch of green surrounded by the tall pines.

That small patch of green is the Jewish cemetery for the city of Roanoke, Virginia - a small cemetery for a small community, and the only Jewish cemetery in the area.  It does not have the rolling hills of grass and trees that one sees at Sharon Memorial Park, or the quiet and simple beauty of Beit Olam in Wayland, or the rows and rows of history one encounters at the cemetery in West Roxbury. It is not a place of tranquility. The sounds of the heavy traffic, just behind the pines, drift across the space, and occasionally one hears noises from the neighboring businesses. The grounds are well kept and clean, and the pine trees provide not only shade but a welcome screen; but there is no real beauty.
This is where my family buried my father last June; this is where I visited his grave during a cold and grey day in December, when the grass was brown and the pine trees thin. And this is where my family gathered this April, for the unveiling of the stone that marks his grave. Once again, we all spoke about my father and his life, the tears intermingling with laughter and good memories. We hugged, and held hands, and recited both the words of tradition and the words of our hearts. We were blessed to have him in our lives, and everyone found their own way to express this, as we gathered under the hot spring sun, just as we had all gathered almost one year before.

Looking at his grave, in this little cemetery along this industrial highway, I could not help but feel disappointed. This was not the place I had imagined for my father’s resting place.  My father was a physician, but his true love, besides my mother, was gardening. One could almost always find him, wearing his special white hat, planting the latest kind of tomato or his favorite cucumbers, preparing seedlings, experimenting with the latest natural fertilizer, and creating innovative ways to keep the deer and squirrels away. When he wasn’t in the garden, he was busy pruning his different fruit trees and grape vines. My father could grow anything and everything. Under his hands, the earth came alive.

And then there were the flowers, chosen after careful research, and brought to life with great care; dozens of colors and shapes that filled the property and surrounded the house. My father could take the lowliest, scrappiest piece of earth, and transform it into a spot of green, lush beauty.

He should be in the most beautiful of places, I thought. He should be surrounded by gardens, and the thickest of flowering trees, and the sounds of birds. His grave should be as beautiful as his gardens. This little cemetery, with its plain grass and the sounds of traffic and industry all around - this is not the place for my father, I thought.

Yet I have come to realize that although my father’s body is there, becoming part of the earth he loved so dearly, it is not really his place. I will not find him there, among the thin pine trees and the traffic.

Instead, I will find him whenever I need guidance, and wise advice. I will find him when I have joys to share, and sorrows that need comfort. I will find him whenever I hear of a compassionate and brilliant physician, or when I read about Israel. I will find him whenever I stop and pause to admire a beautiful garden. I will find him in the still, quiet hours of the night, when I can feel his presence.

For my father’s place is not in that cemetery. It’s within me, in my mind and my heart and my memories. And there, he will forever stay.