Dad’s Memorial Desserts

They say when someone dies you have to try to eat

When my stepmother Nancy died, my dad called. “You know, June, I’d like a memorial service for Nancy.”

“Umm. Dad. Who would come? I mean — Did Nancy have any friends? Would her family even come?”

“Look, I don’t care. I want to do this for my wife. I know you two didn’t get along. ”

He had me there. While I didn’t owe my dad or Nancy anything, my dad was in hospice, and the guilt was being spread on thick like schmaltz on challah bread, even though none of us had had any association with religion of any kind in decades. As my father’s only child and the last relative who talked to my dad with any regularity, aside from the cousins he ranted at during the manic phases of his manic depression, I knew it was my decision. I wasn’t prepared to say no. My dad had failed me as a parent, but I wasn’t ready to fail him as a daughter.

Maybe he heard the pause in my voice as if I was thinking and not ready to say anything, but Dad chimed in.

“I already talked to Ken about it, and he says we need to contact the synagogue.”

Plane tickets were purchased for my tween daughter, my husband, who was turning thirty that weekend, and me, who was fourteen weeks pregnant. We flew into Tallahassee, Florida, and drove the two hundred miles to Tampa, planning all the steps to make this memorial service memorable for Dad.

The next day, I realized that none of the clothes from Dad’s life before the nursing home fit, though looking as good as possible on my dime was important. So, I outfitted him from head to slippers in Walmart’s finest and had medical transport bring him, his Gerry chair, and a nurse to the temple. Dad’s friend Ken and his wife Donna were already there as they were both the executors of Nancy’s bankrupt estate and the last people who hadn’t given up on him.

Ken approached me first.

“June, it is good to see you. I know you know this is important to your dad.”

I fidgeted with the waistline of my dress. Ken was around seventy, like Dad, but a healthier and taller version who made me feel like a child even though I didn’t remember him from childhood.

“The rabbi would like us to meet him in his study to learn about Nancy as he didn’t know her well. That’ll help him prepare his speech for the service.”

We settled into the study, forming an uneven circle with the rabbi at one end. Dad sat reclining in his Gerry chair while the rest of us settled into the standard overflow chairs brought into the room for our discussion. My pregnant belly wasn’t showing yet, but it growled thinking about the kiddish we had pre-ordered for after the ceremony.

“Thank you all for choosing to have a kiddish here to celebrate Nancy… Nancy… Did she go by your last name, Bob?”

Dad looked distracted, but he smiled, happy to be around the people who cared about him. “No. She went by her maiden name, Samuelson.”

“Ahh. For this memorial service for your beloved Nancy Samuelson I’d like to get a sense of who she was to each of you. Just some material I can write down to use during today’s service before the congregation. I hear that she was in Hadassah here in Tampa. I don’t recall her being an active member, so I’ll need your help to fill in the gaps. But you being here is a mitzvah. Okay, who wants to start?”

No one said anything. Ken looked at me. Donna looked at Ken. My daughter and husband looked at one another. I looked at the carpet. All I could say was, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.”

The rabbi looked up.

“Bob, why not start us off? Can you tell me about the time you met Nancy?”

As if his moment had finally come, Dad pulled himself up from his slumped position in the Gerry chair, cocked his head back, and did a half laugh before proceeding.

“When I met Nancy? You want to know about when I met Nancy?”

The rabbi put his pen to the paper and prepared for a story.

“When I met Nancy, I was working in a bookstore and driving around with about a pound of weed in my glove compartment.”

I looked at Dad, and he was just getting started.

“That’s right, I was smoking a lot of weed in those days and good stuff, too. Sometimes, I read books about how to grow good weed, but I bought a lot of it. When I wasn’t smoking, I was always looking for women in the store. Nancy was one of those women. And do you know that she refused to leave? That got my attention. That’s also the same store where I met my other wife.”

My husband laughed, “Rabbi, you’ve stopped writing.”

All of us started laughing. This was quintessential Bob, my Dad. He continued sharing stories until the memorial service began. His nurse then wheeled him into the sanctuary and afterward to a room where the kiddish spread was set out.

Dad had been bedridden for months owing to what was said to be Parkinson’s disease following a series of strokes that had left him largely paralyzed on the right side of his body. So, I realized it would be my role to walk around and thank people for coming to the service while the nurse attended to Dad. I figured that we’d get Dad back to the nursing home so he could be fed his liquid diet once the kiddish was completed.

I set off to mingle with the attendees. About ten minutes later, I turned and noticed that my Dad’s nurse was no longer by his side. Instead, someone had pushed his now upright Gerry chair next to the food table. On Dad’s lap, he had a paper plate and was using his left hand to grab coffeecake and other pastries that he was quietly consuming.

I jogged over to him.

“Dad. What’s going on? I thought everything you ate needed to be liquified!”

Without missing a beat, Dad looked up at me mid-chew. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and his stuffed mouth managed a grin.

“So, okay, you clearly can eat. Wait, was this entire memorial service about the spread?”

A corner of Dad’s mouth went up, exposing his dentures. He tried to stifle a laugh and then chuckled.

Note to readers: Though my father has been gone for many years, a few details were changed in the story to protect identities.