Last year about this time, Facebook was taken over by everyone professing their love for their fathers. People began changing their duck faces to old photos of their daddies, in an effort to let all their friends know how much their fathers meant to them. At some point it became unbelievable. Was it possible that every person with a dated picture of Father really felt that close bond? Weren’t some of those dads unavailable emotionally? Didn’t some of them take a spanking too far? Wasn’t at least one of them cold and distant, or a drinker, or a wife beater, or just a run of the mill adulterer? Was it possible that so many people of the world were that lucky to have good daddies that loved them?
I wasn’t one of those lucky people. My father was a generous combination of all of those unpleasant traits, a real rat bastard, in a
nutshell. Generally, I don’t really give him much thought at all, seeing as how
he’s been dead since I was seventeen, and was barely alive before that, as far
as I could tell. I saw him maybe three times a year, and though I went eagerly
most every visit, it wasn’t about seeing him so much as wanting to have a
father that also wanted me. We don’t always get what we want, some of us more
so than others.
But enough about him. He’s dead, and nothing is really going
to change that. I don’t think about him much, which is the way I like it, until
, well, Father’s Day rolls around, and everyone I know celebrates their fathers
and puts up their pictures and reminds me of what I never had.
So last year, about a week before Father’s Day, I was lamenting
to myself about how tired I was of seeing all those damn daddy pics. If everyone was
going to change their profile pics to showcase Daddy, I would do it too.
I decided to do a little online research to see if I could
find a photo of my father’s grave. I figured if I could find a copy of someone’s
term paper in California or a woman fellating a donkey, surely I could find an
image of a headstone from the late 1980’s. I did a little Googling and stumbled
across a website that would be the key to my search, www.findagrave.com. What an amazing find. Armed with
only my father’s name, year of death, and city and state where he currently
rests in peace, I located the cemetery wherein he is contained. Isn’t the
Internet a remarkable thing? Thank you, Al Gore.
But wait, that’s not all. This amazing website could do more than just find my father's grave. I could also request that someone take a
photo of his final resting place. Here was the very opportunity for which I searched. I could
ask someone to snap his headstone, and then bingo, new profile pic. Take that,
people on Facebook with your happy fucking childhoods! I filled out all the
information for my photo request, and sat back and waited.
And waited and waited. After a few days of waiting, I heard
nothing, decided that feature of the website was a crock of shit, and avoided
Facebook until the third Sunday of June had passed. After a few more weeks, I
totally forgot I even requested the information, much like the rest of my
childhood memories of Dad. Life continued as normal.
Until one day in May, almost a full year later, when I had an email in my inbox. It
was from www.findagrave.com, and the subject line was Success! It wasn’t so much
that the internet had every photo of every person living or dead at the ready,
but rather a small army of kindly strangers who kind of enjoy going to
cemeteries and don’t mind snapping the occasional head shot, if you will, if
someone requests it.
In my case, a lovely couple in the York, Pennsylvania,
area were frequent explorers of my father’s haunting grounds and graciously took
it upon themselves to locate Dad on my behalf. I sent them an email to say thank you for
taking the photos, an opportunity I doubt I would have any time in the
foreseeable future. I left out the part where I only wanted the photo for a dig
against Father’s Day on Facebook, not just because it makes me look like a
schmuck but also because I truly did appreciate what they had done for me, a
complete stranger with a small request on the Internet, the modern day message in a bottle. They replied it was
merely by chance that they even found him, which is why it took almost twelve months
to respond. Apparently, my father shares a final resting spot with a great many
other dead folk in the south central area of Pennsylvania. Go figure.
I looked over the two photos they had uploaded to the
website, my father’s headstone, a sight I only saw the day of its unveiling
several decades ago. I marveled at its Jewishness, its boasting of loving
family, its odd layout and cryptic Hebrew inscription. There lies my father.
I decided to forward the email to my two sisters, along with
a brief explanation of how I came by that particular information to share, a
story I find odd more than amusing, more funny weird than funny haha. I think
they appreciated it, although, as one of my sisters said, “It certainly stirs
up a cocktail of emotions, doesn’t it?” Sister, you said a mouthful.
And now, here it is, the eve of Father’s Day again. This time I
have a photo that I could use for a profile picture. I am choosing not to, in
the same way I choose not to use an actual photo of my father while alive. Not every
man who sires children is a father. Not every memory is for a blessing.
Instead, I am choosing to share that picture here. My rabbi tells me the Hebrew inscription
is his Hebrew name, Pesach something or other, and the date of his death in the Hebrew
calendar, not the regular one. It seems pretty standard headstone information,
in two languages no less, but I am still having trouble with that Beloved
husband and father part. I am not the only one who continues to take issue with that claim.
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