Then, one day I found out Uncle Albert was engaged. Her name was Bebe and none of us liked her. I don't know if it was because we suspected that she was odd or whether it was because we didn't want to lose our uncle's attentions to a stranger. They married and he did drift apart from us. As the years passed, they adopted two children, Arthur and Phyllis.
At just around the time that Phyllis was born, I got married and moved away, and I am not sure I ever saw her. I last saw Arthur ten years ago when he visited after my father's death. He had been in the Marine Corps and impressed us then by doing pushups with a clap in between on the den floor while we were mourning my father. My mother told me that he had married and within a short time, he was the father of three children. Meanwhile, Phyllis had dropped out of sight, my Uncle Albert and Bebe had divorced, and I remained far away.
Uncle Albert's physical and mental health deteriorated. He was given psychotropic drugs to keep him reality oriented, but sometimes he stopped taking them and would lose his false teeth or shoes and would spend hours riding city buses and talking to strangers. He was placed in a home for senior citizens so that someone would make sure he was cared for. Five years ago, his condition was so bad that the doctors requested permission from my Uncle Bill and my mother to take him off the respirator because he was surely going to die. My Uncle Bill and my mother refused, and Uncle Albert miraculously recovered and lived for another four years.
Last year, Uncle Albert died. He died in America days before my son's wedding in Israel to which my sister and I had already flown. Now, a year later, My uncle Bill had called to tell me that we would be unveiling his stone at the cemetery and that my cousins, Uncle Albert's children, Arthur and Phyllis, would be there.
I drove to Philadelphia that morning, stopped at my sister's apartment, and we went to the cemetery together. We arrived early and walked around the area where he was buried, finding the graves of other members of the extended family and reminiscing about them. We stood quietly in front of our grandparents' graves for the first time as adults, and remembered them too. We sat on a bench, waiting for the other family members to join us on that windy autumn day.
A man on a motorcycle passed where we were sitting, back and forth several times until it became clear to us that like us, he was looking for the sign to indicate this section which had apparently disappeared. He stopped the bike, got off, walked toward Uncle Albert's grave, walked back to his bike and drove away. We began to theorize who this person could be. He was dressed in a motorcycle jacket wit many patches and pins. On his head, under the helmet, was a bandanna covering his ponytail. He wore at least one earring, and motorcycle spats. He didn't look like "one of us." Maybe he's Arthur?" "Maybe he's Arthur's friend?" We didn't know...
A few minutes later, Uncle Bill arrived with his two sons, Alan and Murray. Uncle Bill told us how Murray was soon going to become "father and mother" to his seven year old daughter since her mother, his ex-wife, was moving to Washington State and taking her other children with her. His daughter had chosen to stay with him. As it unfolded, his custody of her was to begin that very evening. He was happy but, as usual, pensive. Alan spoke with us about his daughter's Bat Mitzvah which was to take place the following Shabbat. Meanwhile, the guy in the motorcycle garb walked over, and it became clear that it was Arthur. Alan looked over the outfit and pronounced it "classy."
A car drove up and out came a lovely, attractive, thin blonde young woman with a small bouquet of roses. She lay them on her father's grave. After the ceremony, she took one of the roses and put it on our grandparents' grave. As we all introduced ourselves, I became aware of the love and kindness that Arthur and Phyllis felt toward their father and toward each other. I also became aware of the love they felt toward our grandparents, neither of whom they had met. I thought about how amazing it was that my grandparents had six of their grandchildren there at the cemetery, all feeling very mellow.
Before we left the cemetery, my sister and I, and our cousins, accompanied by my Uncle Bill searched for the graves of our great-grandparents. What excitement there was when we found them! What a sense of shared history we shared with our cousins the strangers. How our great grandparents would have loved to see us together in the sun, filled with life and love and vitality. We exchanged addresses and telephone numbers. I thought about the final gift that Uncle Albert had given me- something that I will always cherish.
Rona Michelson, Nov 1995