Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A visit to the cemetery

Last Sunday Laura mentioned would be leaving for work early, to stop by the cemetery (to visit her parents's graves). That, unexpectedly, planted the idea in my head to go visit my father's grave. Today I left home early, and stopped by the Maimonides Cemetery in Elmont. I remembered that his grave is beyond Grant Avenue (the up and down streets have Biblical names, the cross streets names of US presidents.

As it turned out, my father's grave is beyond this intersection.

I found it, in part, by searching for an elaborate plot where two de Rotschild graves are located. As we said the day of the gravestone's unveiling, it's a nice neighborhood.
After a bit, I walked over to the other side, to another up and down street, to look for Uncle Benjamin's grave. He's buried inside of a section for graves of people from their native Polish town.


An old practice, from a bygone age.

From 1928.

Cousin Susie, Ben's youngest daughter, died of breast cancer at age 48, nearly 20 years ago.

Uncle Ben's grave. My older son is named after him; he is also Benjamin Weir.

1909-1966: 57 years of age. Not quite 57. In my memory, he seemed older. I was not allowed to go to his funeral, another old practice that is bygone. Having gotten to see his grave was a satisfying feeling. Closure? Perhaps.

A picture of the neighborhood, as it were.
It was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon; Daylight Savings Time ended the prior weekend. Thus, all in all, the afternoon sun was low in the sky.

PC: perpetual care. All those stones have been there for years, but for the one on the right, which I added on my visit. I recognized a couple of the large ones as having been put there by my son David.

No comments:

Post a Comment