Morris - Assisted Loving

I ts a month after my mother has died, October 2002. My father and I have just pulled into the Mount Ararat Cemetery in Farmingdale, on the flat south shore of Long Island. We pass through iron gates under a Star of David and cruise past row after row of headstones that all look alike. We park and get out of his silver Toyota Avalon, slam the doors, and start walking. Dad is moving slowly. He needs another hip replacement. Not to mention a dry cleaner. His yellow cardigan is a fruit salad of stains. But I have to say, even if his walk is a little gimpy, he looks pretty good for someone close to eighty. Smooth tawny skin, silky silvery hair. Bodes well for me, I guess. Neither of us knows exactly where my mothers grave is. And men dont ask directions, even in cemeteries. So we wander, two lost boys, sneakers on grass, silently passing endless rows of the dead.

We finally find her between some Cohens and Blums. E THEL M ORRIS , the footstone reads, thats all. Well, she was a simple woman. A librarian with modest desiresa comfortable pair of shoes, the occasional bouquet of flowers on a holiday, a sing-along in the car, a half-price coupon for ice-cream cake from the supermarket. She wanted to see her husband and two sons happy even as she struggled in the last years of her life.

We stare at her name. It could be a moment to talk about her, to talk about any regret we might feel about not doing our best for her as she withered. Instead, Dad starts to hum, softly at first, then loud enough to drown out the roar of cars on the nearby parkways. I miss singing with your mother, he says. Even when we ran out of things to say to each other, we always had something to sing.

I know, I say. I know.

This is one of her top ten favorites. Every time I come here Im going to do another one just for her.

Then he clears his throat, and sings to her grave.

Ill be loving you

Always,

With a love thats true

Always.

He sings the whole songslowly, wistfullywith white eyebrows arched upward, nostrils flaring, in a sweet crooners tenor. I can feel my throat burningthe feeling you get when youre about to cry, and I swallow hard to stop it. I would never want to cry in front of my father. That would be so uncomfortable, I tell myself.

Not for just a year,

But always.

Now hes finished, and the sound of traffic and birds takes over while we stand, staring down at her, unsure what else to do. Some grass, palest green, is starting to sprout from the soil we shoveled in front of a small crowd last month on top of her coffin. It was a rainy funeral. The rabbi had put black ribbons on our lapels and we had to rip thema gesture of traditional Jewish mourning. Was Dad looking more stricken or relieved as he stood there, the chief mourner? What about me? I admit to having felt, even three days after her death, a sense of exoneration. She had been sick for ten years with a rare, debilitating blood condition. Dad did what he could for her, driving her to doctors, helping her into the car, sticking around when his impulse was to flee the overwhelming sadness. But in the end, he was inadequate. And while I related to his need to keep enjoying life even as she suffered, I also resented him for it. My big brother, Jeff, resented him even more than I did. Dad wouldnt help her with her pills. He insisted on being out of the house for hours for bridge games, yet he wouldnt hire the help that would make our lives easier. He told me she was a lost cause. True as it was, it sounded so cruel. So theres an acrid, unspoken guilt we share now, here at the place where she rests. I stand over her, reading her name on the new bronze plaque in the ground.

E THEL M ORRIS

We shift on our feet, a father and son with everything to talk about and nothing to say to each other. Then Dad thinks of something.

You know, he says, I always liked this cemetery.

Oh yeah? I say.

Actually, Im thinking as I look around that I dont care for this place at all. And I also dont like myself for thinking such a thing. But lately, this kind of snobbery has started taking up the parking space in my head where nicer thoughts should be. I cant stop myself from looking at this cemetery where my mother is finally resting in peace (from my father and me) and applying the same standards that I do to a hotel or restaurant. I think to myself that the location of this cemetery isnt genius. Its all wrong, in fact, sandwiched between two noisy roads. Who needs that? And the headstones of this cemetery are too much alikenew slabs of polished marble that arent aged enough to have historical charm. Theyre all as evenly spaced apart and repetitive as the undistinguished homes in the nearby split-level development where I grew up, homes I was accustomed to as a child but now find embarrassing in their modesty. Some cemeteries are poetic and overgrown, with pretty hills, water views, and famously depressed poets buried beneath towering pines and elms. What does this cemetery have? Easy access to the Southern State Parkway?

I have to tell you something important, Dad says.

Whats that?

Theres a plot for you here, Bobby. I bought it years ago on my way to my Tuesday tennis game. So now you know you can be buried here with your mother and me when your time comes.

I nod. Im touched at the sweetness of his gesture. But then, Im ashamed to find myself thinking, The last thing I want is to be buried on the south shore of Long Island for all eternity. Unless its the Hamptons, of course.

But what kind of son would say that?

Um, thats so nice of you, Dad, I tell him. But what about Jeff? Hell want to be buried here with you and Mom, too, wont he? Will there be room for all of us?

Your brother has a family of his own, Bobby, and they love Westchester, he says, as a groundskeeper drives by in a truck. But you , since youre alone, and probably wont have a family of your own, I thought youd want to be buried here with us.

Its a nice offer. And I know I should probably just thank him for the hospitality, then let him give me one of his father-son bear hugs he hopes will bond us. I mean, hes talking about wanting me at his side forever, in the hereafter, and Im thinking of telling him I have other plans? Sure, my life has always been a little too busy to include him comfortably. But my death? Theres every reason why I should just agree to his loving and lovely proposal. But I cant do it. I cant just say thanks and hug him back.

Im forty-four years old, and I still dont know when to give my old man a break.

I dont say anything for a long while, just keep nodding over my mothers grave, and listening to the traffic with my lips firmly pressed together.

I am feeling something between aggravation and remorse.

Well, what can I say? This little visit from Manhattan, where I live the high-key, low-paying life of a minor style columnist at a major newspaper, is turning out to be the usual decathlon of challenges. I mean, last night, I step off the train in Babylon for a visit because Dad called to say he was lonely and needed some moral support. Hes not at the station, late as usual. So I sigh and wait, watching everyone else drive off. Then, finally, he arrives, and I clear the papers and debris off of his passenger seat, sit down in his junk-strewn sedan, and get my favorite new white jeans soaking wet. Something sticky and most likely dietetic is seeping into my boxer shorts as he drives.