Eric 2014 London

ERIC 2014 London

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.

Alfred North Whitehead

I come to London For “kever avot” It is Elul The time for annual introspection and moral accounting…

Customary to visit the graves of ancestors Which coincides with nana’s Yahrzeit And hence my visit to Edgwebury Sephardi cemetery To see Nana and Dada…

As the years pile on As the grave remains the same I kneel And pledge my eternal love for the only grandparents I knew

But the gift is really Eric My dearest uncle Whose tall frame graces the kitchen At 5am, making coffee Reminding me of Dada in the same spot When I used to visit him On Mallard Way in Kingsbury As a teenager.

In the sixties.

We sit and sip coffee in the wee hours And he describes his philosophy of life (So similar to Dada’s) On religion: “family friends and discipline!” the rest is superfluous!

Oh that word! My mother lived by it!

And Dada told me a similar epithet I note how similar their views are As I sit between the two generations And find myself drawn ever closer to This genetic imprint despite decades of rabbinic study For which Dada had no patience!

“Alfred North Whitehead comes mind” “and Spinoza” I tell Eric.

He asks whether I ever found Dada’s book “God and His manifold manifestations” “No” I reply “But I bet I could rewrite it pretty accurately from my genes!”

He laughs.

A disciplined man He rises each morning to practice the viola As always At 80 something!

Like my mother and Becky Who I visited yesterday at the Nightingale home She whizzes around this sprawling place like she owns it!

Discipline and Family are his creed He is in constant contact with all his children Knows each one’s struggles A patriarch in the truest best sense of the word.

Yes I come here To see Eric And his uncanny resemblance to Dada And feel my deep connection to this man And his ethics A prince of a man A role model for me He gives me courage…

As I tell my children “When I grow up…I want to be like uncle Eric!” to this day.

MOURNING

Sitting with Eric He mourns the loss of his wife I think of those few hours I sit with him His children piously leave to hear the Megillah Who would have thought?

I cannot leave him alone He is “sitting Shiva” The traditional way of mourning by nailing our buttocks to a low chair For a week or so Paradoxically his mourning is punctuated by the Sabbath where mourning Is prohibited no matter how close the loss Then followed on its heels by Purim the day of merriment and alcoholic stupor.

These two days rudely intrude on the dignity of his loss

And now we are together for a couple of hours As he reviews the last years of Florence’s illness The injustice of the British nursing home system The institutionalization of the elderly The pure human cruelty that took place there His frustrations and revulsion at the care His revolution And the last days.

I remain inspired by this man He teaches me how to live life How to remain faithful without love reciprocated How to play, How to host guests How to give to others without end How to master an instrument How to remain committed despite everything How to laugh from the belly Now, how to mourn.

I weep silently for his loss I look forward hopefully for his indomitable spirit to resurface To rebuild his life and his humor to resurface To begin teaching and performing and examining students once more To live life fully as he had done prior to his focus on Florence for so long.

His head hangs low in fatigue He feels he has failed her He could have done more Despite her progressive disease He is hard on himself Always has been Yet gracious and understanding to all others.

His spirit will return I feel it Even now He greets visitors and worries about feeding them Always about the other He is hopelessly impossible to emulate I always fall short.