Move your car, please
Okay, folks, this one might be a little morbid. Morbid humor. Like when my dad would read the obituaries in the paper every day to make sure he wasn’t dead. Like the picture I took of my father, one of the many times he was in the hospital, and he posed with his eyes closed and his tongue out.
It was funny then, perhaps not so much now.
No matter what the situation, we always have to try to find the funny. The comedian Modi is the perfect example of that. When Husband #1 and I saw him a few times, years and years ago, he wasn’t so funny. Now, with all the horrible stuff going on, he is really funny.
His routine about the Jewish women and their missions to Israel is not only hysterical, but totally spot on. If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can probably google it and see it online. Totally worth it.
In any event, many decades ago, my parents discovered that some of their grandparents were buried in the same cemetery. It was a profound revelation. It also meant that their parents are now in the same cemetery. I have fond recollections of the many times I would accompany my parents to Old Montefiore to “visit” all our loved ones.
My dad, being a kohen, would sit in the car and chauffeur us around. I have recently been made aware that there might have been a halachic problem with what he did, but doesn’t making your wife happy supersede halacha? (No, seriously, doesn’t it? Though Husband #1 doesn’t seem to think so, but that is another story.)
And then, decades later, Husband #1 and I discovered that we too had many relatives at good Old Montefiore. Which leads us to this column.
I have to say, quite honestly, that it is a very good thing that our fathers are at the same place. Good is not quite the right word, because, obviously, it is bad that they are no longer with us. Fortuitous? Coincidental? Take your pick.
Whatever the correct and most sensitive terminology is, it works out really well. And this past Saturday night, Husband #1 informed me that the next day was the best Sunday for us to go to our dads for the pre-Rosh Hashanah visit.
Husband #1 doesn’t have the best track record with driving in cemeteries. He still has a considerable amount of PTSD from his grandmother’s unveiling, where he backed up into someone’s headstone and did a nice amount of damage to his car.
When we got to the turn to go down the road to where his father is, he saw a car parked in the other direction. His hands tightened around the wheel.
“Please go see what that guy plans to do. There is no way I can pass him and there is no way I can drive in reverse for that long,” he said to me, his loving wife, as his face became pale with fear.
So out of the car I went, waddling with determination to the white car that was inducing such panic in poor Husband #1.
As I approached the vehicle, I saw the people who had been in it. An older couple, both wearing gardening gloves and holding various gardening tools. They were there for the long haul, ready to tidy up the weeds that had encroached upon their loved one’s final resting place.
How do you ask these people to move their car??????
I turned toward Husband #1 and could see the concerned look on his face. This was ruining his plan. My non-yekki yekki husband was already figuring out how much later we were going to eat lunch, how much more traffic we were going to get stuck in driving home from the Island of Long, and how much more of the Giants game we/he was going to miss.
Never mind the fact that we were at the cemetery visiting two men who we loved with all our hearts…
“I am so so sorry to bother you at this very sensitive time, but is there any chance that you are going to drive backward to get back to the entrance? My husband is in the car down the road and he just wanted to know since he cannot pass you.”
I knew the answer. They knew the answer. I think, deep down, even Husband #1 knew the answer.
I waddled back to the car, back to Husband #1, and then, for the next seven minutes, I stood behind the car directing him like an air traffic controller until he was able to turn around.
Of course, by the time we got to his dad, the other car was pulling away, but it was all worth it, because we got to see Strudel and her sister (and her parents).
And there you go.
Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck hopes you have all been enjoying the lovely weather. Will it hold up until the high holidays? She hopes so….
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