The Non-Funeral

[First, thanks for all the condolences and comments, both public and private. I'll reply one of these days, I promise.]

So, the funeral. Well, here's the thing. There isn't going to be one.

I think I mentioned, back on my old blog when Dad was first diagnosed, that he was talking about being cremated. I think I also mentioned that I found that somewhat of an, um, interesting choice from a man who escaped Nazi Germany in the late 1930's. ("So, what?" I asked him soon after his diagnosis, when he had made his choice clear. "This is your way of saying, 'Haha, Hitler, you couldn't burn me, so I'll do it myself'?")

For background: My grandfather, so what little family history I know goes, had been in a work camp and been released before the death camps really got going. Still, the work camp had given him enough of a glimpse into the future, and he grabbed what family members were willing to take him seriously--my grandmother, my aunt, and my then-six-month-old father--and headed for The Netherlands. Some time later, and I wish I knew the timeline better, they managed to find their way to the U.S., coming in through Ellis Island, where my grandparents decided to change my father's name--originally Chaim, meaning life in Hebrew--to Jack, as in Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy. Ellis Island officials added a middle name--Israel--which my father jettisoned as soon as he possibly could. It was his contention--and I know I've said this many times in the past--that religion was merely one man's reason to hate another man, and he wanted nothing to do with it. That said, he did have a bar mitzvah, and has asked for his tallis to be given to N, so he must have had some religious upbrining...just not one that he told me about.

OK. So my dad wants to be cremated (a process that is apparently already underway), wants his ashes spread in the yard of the house where he lived with his girlfriend these past few months and where they had spent a lot of time these past several years. Does not want a rabbi, does not want a religious ceremony (see above). We are to have a 'casual' get-together at the house, where we're going to...I'm not sure what, actually. Eat. Talk about him. Hang out together.

So, yeah. That's what's ahead for me this week. No comforting traditions, no ritual to hide behind. Not the way I would personally choose to close out my father's life...but, now that I think about it, it's sort of fitting, since most of the way he lived his life was not how I would personally have chosen to do it, either.

[A completely detached aside: Wow, that post came out a lot more bitter than I had initially intended it to come out. You who are bloggers and do your entries by the seat of your pants, the way I almost always do, may have experienced the same. I was thinking I'd just post a little bit about how so many people seem to think that at least there will be peace and closure at the funeral, but that, in this case, there will be no funeral, and I doubt there will be closure. Instead, it turned into a kind of rambling family history that then morphed into a slam at my dad. How dull. How predictable. Feh.]