Death and my grandpa and great grandparents gravestones.
It was quite the most extraordinary of days, an unforgettably emotional day, heavy with deep and sombre reflection, silent contemplation, an overwhelming day with a powerful poignancy, very private thoughts and all under the panoply of one sun kissed day in early spring, where the sunshine certainly shone on the righteous. It was the moment I'd longed for so long and didn't quite know how to register at first but then basked in the glory of it all.
Death, as we all know, is the most sensitive and delicate of all subjects. And yet death has neither questions nor answers. It remains the last staging post of our lives, the moment of deliverance and judgment when death becomes finality, the final pause and breath of our lives, that critical conclusion to the end of an epic journey, immeasurable and unquestionable, inevitable of course but extremely moving rather like a grand concerto at a classical music gathering when the drums roll dramatically for the last time and then we depart from this mortal coil.
We all have different perspectives and reactions on the subject of death and all experience feelings of mortality when age does indeed wither us. But our loved ones, our adored ones, the family that gave us that first foundation stone and the comforting stability when childhood was fraught with mysteries, can often be the people who will always remain in our hearts and minds when the final candle goes out and rivers of tears are shed.
According to the great 19th and early 20th century American classic author and prodigious novelist Henry James, death is the most distinguished thing and that does have the most emphatic resonance to all who regard death as the most remarkable experience of them all. It is, of course both tragic, heart breaking and one of the most melancholy events in most of our lives because the mum, dad, grandpa, grandma, auntie, cousin or uncle you'd always doted on is no longer a visible presence at family gatherings, parties or special occasions. And that's how it felt for me yesterday. The loss of a loved one from seven decades ago still intrigued and stirred my curiosity. I had to find out about my grandpa.
But on an early spring day in April with blue skies above us and the cherry blossom flaunting and showing off their finest finery on the handsome trees of the season, I wanted to know something that still held a warm sentimentality and personal significance that couldn't be defined. You found yourself in a world of calming spirituality, the smoothest connection to somebody who, although you never knew him, was fundamentally a part of you. In fact it was you because you were named after him.
And so it was that some good friends of mine and I gathered at Edmonton Jewish Cemetery. My friend had repeatedly informed me that he knew where my paternal grandfather, my grandpa on my late and lovely dad's side, had been buried. We also knew that my grandpa and grandma and great grandparents had also been laid to rest in Edmonton. But for years and years I remained in the dark, occasionally frustrated but reassured that one day the magical day of our meeting would arrive.
My paternal grandpa was one Judah Morris, a respectable and immensely industrious Hammersmith shopkeeper, one of Napoleon Bonaparte's small shopkeepers. To this day, the stock and merchandise that Judah sold to the public is somehow hazy in your mind but still recognised with much pride 74 years after his death. Reliable sources have told me that he was the manager of a utilitarian shop that sold garden furniture, mops, buckets, cloths, fly or wasp spray bottles, plugs, electrical drills quite possibly, nails and screws among an abundance of most of the household essentials.
And this is where my story gets very interesting. It did occur to me that with much nervous fear and trepidation that Judah's gravestone would be either subsiding, sinking into the ground or totally broken and cracked and condemned to obscurity, an unidentifiable gravestone that had now vanished without trace. So here's why I'd resigned myself to the worst case scenario.
Judah Morris has been dead for over 74 years and died in January 1952, a year before our late and much loved Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's Coronation. It was an interminable wait but, at long last, my patience had been rewarded. How wonderful it was to see you Judah. My lovely dad was utterly traumatised and crestfallen when his dad passed away, his grief almost tangible for my dad. My dad said that when Judah passed away he simply became inconsolable and bereft, a man who never really recovered from his father's death. Their relationship was so close and deeply affectionate that I'm not sure how my dad really came to terms with the magnitude of his passing. But I loved my dad deeply and always will. There was a plaintive and lasting sadness etched across my dad's face whenever he did mention Judah's name over the dinner table in our kitchen.
But, just for one day yesterday, my friends and I walked across the moving landscape of row upon row of grey, sepulchral graves, standing in very disciplined order, some so old and ancient that you could hardly see the writing and eulogies on these vast monuments. Thrillingly though, and much to my enormous delight, both my grandpa and grandma's stones were in impeccable and pristine fashion. I had suspected the worst but then smiled widely at the upright solidity of their gravestones.
So then I glanced across next to Judah's gravestone and discovered my formidable and resilient grandma Dora, an almost frail and emaciated figure with silver hair while she was alive but now proudly placed next to her loving husband Judah. Dora was an incredible, redoubtable woman whose strength of character and indomitable spirit could never be questioned. She did though keep going on and on until her death in April 1978 at the age of 90.
Regular visits to her cosy flat in Shepherds Bush flat would reveal a brave and honest woman, a strong and indefatigable Russian woman determined to overcome innumerable hip replacements and fires. Dora was looked over by an auburn haired woman called Bessie who would do all the cooking and cleaning for her. I can only assume that Bessie looked after my grandma. Sadly, Judah was 52 when he died with Bright's Disease which was then a malignant and incurable cancer. He was in hospital for a couple of months but tragically passed away without seeing his son married. I would never question why because my dad achieve eternal happiness in wedded bliss to my late and lovely mum for 44 years and that's special.
Let's go a little further back. Abraham Shamansky was my great grandpa who died in 1909, now barely remembered but honoured by a great grandson who remains curious and inquisitive to this day. The lettering on Abraham's grave is only just legible but now flaking away quite alarmingly at the bottom of the grave. I have yet to find any more details about Abraham's background and what he did for a living. The names of his siblings are sources of mystifying conjecture but then again it was 1909 and we can only imagine what life must have been like back then.
And finally there is Morris Stopnitsky, who passed away at 68 and the missing jigsaw piece in the puzzle. Why, I wondered, did I become Joe or Joseph when my paternal grandpa was a Judah? This is my logical assumption. Judah, in 1962, must have been considered completely inappropriate, unfashionable or the right kind of name for a boy. So the J in Judah morphed into Joe and the rest is history. Now Morris is obviously a reversal of the surname with a first name. So Morris Stopniski was carried through the generations and somebody decided to switch things around and Morris became my surname.
What of the Stopnitskys? Were they staunch Leninists or Marxists? Russian, of course they were? Did they embrace the politics of the ages, the morals and ethics of the early 20th century? Did they have joyous vodka parties wearing Cossack hats, joining arms and dancing the evening away. Were they Bolsheviks or Mensheviks with leanings towards the left, right or centre? Or maybe somebody had told them about those wretched Communists who kept telling us that Russia was the best and most prosperous country in the world?
And that takes me back to the present day and the morbid fascination with death on both TV and radio. At the moment some TV channels, of which some of us at the last count, probably nudged the five thousand mark, are forever referring to the whole subject of death. They tend to appear on the lesser known channels but here's my grievance. Why on earth does the conversation keep going back to cremations, funeral services and ashes being kept in family urns on mantelpieces?
Surely life has to be celebrated, elevated to the highest plateau, rejoiced in, cherished, sanctified and loved with the deepest tenderness. For yesterday, the gravestones of my wonderful grandpa, grandma and great grandparents meant so much more to me personally. It was day that will never be forgotten. It is a day I shall always remember.
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