No shiva. No funeral. Devoid of Jewish ritual, no real closure.
On a rainy and unseasonably cold April 26, we buried my 92-year-old father, Milton, a victim of the COVID-19 plague that ravaged his memory care facility.
Deprived of Jewish ritual to signify the finality of death and the length of time we had been barred from seeing my father by the coronavirus visitation restrictions, the experience still seems surreal. I find myself not as sad as I think I should be because although intellectually I know he is dead, it still doesn’t seem real.
Ever since I heard he had tested positive for the coronavirus about two weeks before his death, I had been expecting the worst. He had his ups and downs over that period, but bounced back the next day, temporarily raising hope that he may actually be one of the seniors who would beat the odds.
Then on the morning of Wednesday, April 22, I got a call about 9:30 a.m. from my brother in California, who somberly informed me, “Deb, I have bad news. Dad passed about 9:15.”
Fortunately, my father had a wonderful aide, Kevin, who offered to come in extra hours to make up for staffing shortages at the facility despite the danger to himself. Throughout the many weeks we had been forbidden from seeing my father in person, Kevin called us regularly so we could video chat or FaceTime with him. He was so distraught over my father’s death, he has since called my sister, brother and myself to talk about him. We consider his presence a blessing.
On that fateful morning Kevin arrived about 6 a.m. and sensed the end was near because he called my sister 15 minutes later to exchange a few sentences with my father.
My father’s death from a virus that has produced fear and anxiety throughout the world, for us began a journey of reconfiguring centuries of Jewish ritual. There could be no quick funeral and burial. Due to the surge in deaths, the first date we could get was four days later. Because he died of the coronavirus, no one at the funeral home would touch the body. Instead, we were told a ritual body washing could only be done “in a ceremonial fashion,” which was never fully explained, although a shomer was present throughout the ordeal.
Because of restrictions we could not hold a real funeral, only a graveside ceremony with just the rabbi, myself, my sister and two nieces present. It was Zoomed to friends and relatives across the country, including my brother and family, who weren’t getting on an airplane during a pandemic. Perhaps the one bright spot in this was that those who couldn’t have attended the funeral because of distance, including my father’s best childhood friend living in Florida, virtually joined us. If there’s anything we’ve learned during this crisis it is that technology can bring people together for sad occasions like funerals and happy events like weddings and family reunions. A laptop may now be part of many future lifecycle events, allowing those far away to share the joy or grief.
Because the cemetery employees weren’t allowed contact with mourners, we sat in our vehicles and watched as they lowered the coffin into the ground and filled in the grave as my sister and a niece FaceTimed the solemn act to my brother’s family and to my father’s longtime companion, Rita, who had brought joy into his life in the years after the death of my mother and who loyally visited him in the facility virtually every day until she was prevented from doing so.
The hands-off protocol forbade staff from erecting a canopy, and we were told if we wanted a covering to protect us and the computer from the rain we had to provide our own, which the four of us put up. With only a rabbi present to conduct a short service, my sister and I read eulogies and said Kaddish.
Shiva minyanim had to be conducted via Zoom, which provided both needed closeness with family and friends and comic relief, especially that first night, which reminded me of one of those Facebook parodies of young adults trying to teach their parents about Zoom. My college-age niece fielded phone calls asking why the same Zoom link from the funeral wasn’t working that night or asking for instructions on how to click on audio. My father’s cousin never figured it out and my niece held the phone up so she could watch and later share stories about growing up with my father. This went on for close to 20 minutes while the poor rabbi waited patiently to begin. Despite the gloomy day, I found myself laughing. During the service, everyone was muted except the rabbi so as not to be thrown off by each other’s time delay. It again felt strangely unreal hearing just one person while sitting on my bed surrounded by cats and not people. However, after sharing stories about my dad I stayed on to talk with cousins, other family members and friends whom I hadn’t seen since before the lockdown began.
Ultimately, it was a sad end to a man who exemplified the often cliched phrase of age being just a number. An athlete all his life who followed and played multiple sports, coached youth basketball and baseball and ran six miles a day into his 70s until his ankle gave out, my father continued working out two hours daily most days. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving he was on an exercise bike at the gym at this adult community when untreated aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the blood vessel leading to the heart, caused an arrhythmia that stopped his heart. Revived with CPR and defibrillation, the oxygen deprivation caused a decline in my father’s cognitive ability so severe that after spending several weeks in cardiac ICU it was obvious he would never be able to return home. My siblings and I have thought about what might have been if his condition, which could have been easily corrected by a simple procedure, had been treated. I imagine he would be at home quarantining and doing 50 push-ups.
Instead on that miserably damp day where we buried him, we could not even participate in the final act of honoring a parent, shoveling dirt into the grave. Because the coffin had already been covered and the cemetery would not provide us with a shovel, I brought four plastic cups as instructed that we used to scoop up what dirt we could to pour on top of the grave.
Then we placed stones on top of the headstones of my mother and maternal grandparents, whom my parents are buried next to, folded up the canopy and got back in our vehicles. I turned up the heat and came home, washed my hands, tossed the dirty cups in the garbage and instead of a house full of people munching on lox and bagels, I sat down by myself with my thoughts, a bowl of hot soup and mug of steaming coffee.
By Debra Rubin
