A Room of His Own
Jay S Zimmerman
It was an orthodox Jewish funeral, though my father was never
orthodox, and I can’t remember the last time he was in a synagogue. In fact, I
don’t ever remember him attending since my Bar Mitzvah. Our family celebrated
all the typical Jewish Holidays and, except for my youngest sister, a Lubovich devotee committed to an orthodox Hasidic lifestyle, we were a fairly secular family. So,
I was rather surprised to be standing here. The day was typical south Florida,
hot, sticky and bright, and I stood in my suit, sweating,
shovel in hand, staring down into the grave. The sound of the earth covering the
coffin filled my ears as I lifted the shovel and watched his new white pine
home being covered in a cascade of black dirt. I was burying my father. I heard
a large rock thud against the wood and saw the top portion of the un-nailed coffin jar loose and move slightly
off center. His arm around my shoulder, the mortuary director whispered in my
ear, his funereal breath questioning if I desired him to go into the grave and
straighten the coffin lid. I laughed to
myself, “My Dad might just like a room with a view. “I shook my head “no"
and whispered back, "I don't really think it
matters now, does it?"
As I continued to shovel the dirt before the bulldozer finished
the task, I thought back over the last months. My father had decided
he was ready for hospice. Too much pain for too long, too many middle of the
night siren-filled trips to the ER, too many days in intensive care, too many
doctors wanting to try procedures they thought might help him survive just a
little longer. No more invasions into his body. The hospitalist was comforting
and clear. It was time. My father was ready. No more treatment. He had
reconciled himself to the reality of dying.
My Dad had a sweet tooth. I remember taking him to a doctor's
appointment (he was using a walker by then). He spotted one of his favorite
delis, smiled, "Let's get a pastry." I recalled this particular time
because the place was filled with old Jewish folks with walkers and getting to
the cash register meant entering a walker traffic jam. "Only in Florida,"
I chuckled to myself. My Dad could now eat all the candy and pastries he
wanted. No more worries about clogged arteries or putting on weight. No more sneaking snacks behind my mother’s back or her disdainful looks
when she caught him. She worried constantly about his health.
Arrangements made, he was transported to an inpatient hospice
while they prepared his home for in-home care. The hospice was located in the oldest building on the hospital campus. Ironic, isn’t it, housing the nearly dead in
a building about to collapse? That first night in hospice my sister and I
brought him a large bag of chocolate candy and relished in his smile. His
eyes sparkled as he enjoyed the pleasant change from hospital food. We talked and I asked if he wanted anything at home. He
nodded, said he would like to be able to look out the window from his hospital
bed. I thought, “a simple last request.”
Nothing is simple with my mother. She is anxious and worries a lot and likes to live by routine. Any change could
easily upset her. She had full time help in the house but we all thought this
was more for company and less for help provided. She was lonely. My father and
my mother were married for over 60 years but he was a workaholic and rarely
there to provide her company. Since his near death experience ten years prior, due to his
respiratory system approaching collapse, she had had to give up smoking and
accommodate her life to his. He was a man who did not take care of his health
and would need to be forced to see a doctor. It was hard for her to watch him
refuse to do what he needed to do for himself. His behavior could lead to her
becoming more controlling and demanding. She feared his dying and her being
alone most and this led to many fights.
A change in the layout of his bedroom upset her and she refused
his request. “It won’t look
good with the furniture that way. I won’t have the room turned upside down," she said. In reality the room
wouldn’t look any different
with the head of the bed by the window. And anyway, the man was dying; why
would the layout of the bedroom matter to her? But she was in her 80s now and
change is much harder as we grow older. Plus, her life had been turned upside
down by his illnesses and she craved sameness and stability. We insisted,
telling her it was his dying wish to be able to look out at the world for his
last few weeks, but she refused. My father came home at the end of the week and
had a view of the stark white wall. He never spoke up for himself. A lifetime
of trying to please her, a woman very hard to please, coupled with his own
guilt about being absent from her life, kept conversation to a minimum. He
capitulated as usual, claiming “It was easier this way.” My sister and I knew we could no longer be his voice.
A few weeks later, he ate breakfast and while waiting for some
medication slipped quickly and quietly into death.
It was a little over a year later, not long after his unveiling, when I received a telephone call from my sister. “You won’t believe
it, Mom is moving Dad.” I didn’t know
how to react. My first thought was “even in death, no rest.” My mother didn’t
like where he was buried and so, now that the unveiling was over, she had
arranged to move him somewhere else in the cemetery where she wouldn’t have to walk over other graves to get to
the bench next to my father’s
grave. She had him dug up and transported to his new “room” under some trees and changed where
she and my younger sister would be buried so they could be next to him. Hearing
all this, I wanted to pull out what was left of my hair, but realized it was a
done deed. It was sometimes hard to know what motivated my mother. In death as
in life my Dad would have no voice. I just hoped he would enjoy the short trip
and my mother could take pleasure knowing they would be together one day in a
pleasant spot under the trees.
Weeks later, after his move was completed, I was sitting at my
computer thinking of him and missing him. I was recalling special times we had
together—going for pastries and for pies at the Toddle House, the stories about
Sinbad he would tell me when I was 10 and the stories he would share about the
difficult early years and his army days in World War II. I remembered he would
bring home donuts in the middle of the night, when I was 8, upon his return from
his second job, driving a cab. I recalled all the odd and interesting investors
he introduced me to, as I got older and tagged along to work, and the
relationships I developed with some of them. The memories comforted me. These
are the memories I prefer. I imagined my Dad now sitting in that great Toddle
House in the sky, having a piece of pie looking down at all this, shaking his
head, smiling and saying,
“Free at last, Thank God, I am free at last,”
and indulging himself in another slice of the coconut cream.
Jay S Zimmerman came to writing and poetry from his life as a visual artist, composing poems to go with his art and writing fiction and nonfiction, finding as much joy in painting with words as with other visual tools. He has recently been published in Three Line Poetry, I am not a silent poet and Flying Island. He was born in the concrete caverns of New York, amid the trolley bells and sounds of subways, travelled south to Miami Beach and thrived in the warm sands and salt air dancing to the musical rhythms of Klesmer, Cha Cha and Bossa Nova, finally venturing to the dark soil, flat farmlands and rolling hills of the Midwest where his roots have grown and been nourished for over 40 years. He is an artist, photographer, psychologist, and social justice advocate.