The irrepressible Eli (1925-2014), photographed in 1990.
As the sun sets this evening, I will light a candle in my father’s memory to mark the second year since he passed on to the Undiscovered Country... that great and foreboding land to which we all must eventually journey.
Two years - at least, by the arcane reckonings of the Hebrew calendar.
They say Time heals all wounds. (They also say Time wounds all heels.) And it’s true. The ache of loss diminishes as the days and years pass - else how could we go on with the business of living, weighted down by accumulated grief? And yet there is an empty space that never goes away.
In the photograph above, Dad was sixty-five - only two years older than I am now. But my deepest memories were of Eli as a young man, spreading out newspaper on the floor to catch the drippings from his trumpet’s spit valve... sitting down to play the piano... taking me and my brother to Coney Island Steeplechase amusement park... navigating from Bensonhurst to our home in suburban Massapequa after a day with his parents, my sleepy head resting on his leg as he drove.
Those, ahh, those were sweet days.
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3 comments:
A mindful yahrzeit to you, full of loving memory.
I always loved visiting your house - your dad was a man of what seemed like a thousand voices - and a dead-on Jerry Lewis
(Sorry for the delay--I tend to do all the reading of my blog roll all in one day.)
I liked what you said about time, it heals the pain, but not the void.
Thanks for sharing your memories of your dad with us, in a way it keeps him alive.
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