Quiet Men

I will never forget Sollie’s funeral. He was my upstairs neighbor and before moving upstairs he lived down the block. That is what we did in West Rogers Park. People moved from apartment to apartment, but they rarely left the neighborhood. If you only met Sollie once you would never have guessed he was a man whose passing would bring together so many people from so many walks of life. He was so quiet and unassuming. My husband and I got to the funeral early because we were bringing my mother, one of Sollie’s best friends. We passed by the front row expressing our condolences to Sollie’s wife, son, daughter and granddaughter. My husband and I had only been married for 3 years at the time and we lived in the apartment above Sollie and his wife. They were married for over 50 years when Sollie passed away. Within minutes the funeral home was filled to capacity and many people would need to remain standing during the service.

Each eulogy was more eloquent than the one before it and they all moved everyone in the overcrowded chapel to tears. The first to speak was a Senior Partner at the Law Firm where Sollie had been working for the last 20 years of his life after he had retired from being a United States mailman. I later found out this attorney was a major fixture in Chicago, someone who had easy access to the halls of Power in our country’s third largest City. Next the woman who was the President of the Sisterhood at Sollie’s temple where he had worshipped faithfully for over 6 decades spoke wistfully of the light Sollie’s life had brought to so many. Then Sollie’s son spoke, the awe and regret dripping off of every word. Finally, Sollie’s granddaughter brought her self to the podium with the poise and power of someone whose 16 year life reflected all the hardship and trouble usually spread over a much longer time. She learned how to handle herself at her grandfather’s knee and she knew standing there she was the legacy he was leaving behind, his mark on the world.

Sollie once landed on the beaches of Normandy in a living hell, but he refused to speak about it. He came home after the war and repeatedly walked the same route for forty years delivering mail for the United States Post Office. I guess he thought of that as his second tour of duty serving our country. And Sollie was all about duty and service and delivering the goods. Eventually he had to retire from the Post Office but he could not retire from serving. So he delivered the mail in a law firm that was so big it needed its own mail delivery system to expedite business from office to office, floor to floor and building to building. But whatever Sollie did, he did it quietly and with great dignity and reserve. He let his smile do all the talking for him. Monetarily speaking, he left a pension and little else. Spiritually he left a wake, a cascading invisible ocean wave that lifted every soul he ever touched. I did not think I would ever see a funeral like Sollie’s again. I was wrong.

When I met Melinda and Ilene I was a freshman in High School. They had gone to a different grammar school than I had. They were already best friends, but more importantly they were neighbors. They lived on the block we all wished we could grow up on, the one filled with kids and friendships just waiting to blossom every spring when the flowers bloomed along the sidewalks and the bicycles came out of hiding . I remember meeting them individually, Melinda in Biology and Ilene in gym. On that first day I did not realize they knew each other, but by the end of the week, I fell into this triangle of a friendship that was going to last a life time. Oh, there would be some major fall outs and long separations for all us at one point or another, but a life time gives you chances for reconciliations and starting over. And last weekend any bumps in the roads we had traveled seemed so incredibly unimportant.

Since those days in high school we have managed to get married, produce 6 kids, celebrate 4 Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, accumulate 3 dogs, 2 rats (both my sons), and three suburban homes complete with attached garages and a total of 9 bathrooms. Not bad for three girls from West Rogers Park in Chicago who once occupied two town houses, and one apartment (each with only one bathroom). While Ilene and I never left the Chicago “area”, Melinda followed her heart and her close knit family to Arizona 7 years ago. Her parents and three brothers had moved there while we were still in college. I remember visiting Arizona with Ilene when Melinda was staying there one winter. We were in our early 20’s. I did not return there again until Melinda’s daughters’ Bat Mitzvah three years ago, once again I was with Ilene. Then last February, Ilene and I went back for Melinda’s son’s Bar Mitzvah. We always make sure to take a picture of three of us standing together trying to look like show girls. Last weekend when Ilene and I went to Arizona we knew we would not be posing for any pictures or raising a glass to toast another celebration. It was the first time in our friendship when we would be mourning together over the loss of a parent. I came into the friendship with only one parent. My father had died when I was 9, long before my freshman year in high school. Sadly we had already been together to mourn the loss of a sibling when Ilene’s special needs brother died in 2001. You would not expect to bury a sibling so young but I guess death has its own time line.

It was Melinda who called to tell me about Ilene’s brother. I was in my car when she reached me on my cell phone. She told me to pull over first. I knew it meant she had to tell me someone had died but I would never have thought it would be Ilene’s brother Mark. He was only 2 years old than us. He reminded me of my cousin Shelly. When we were growing up we called them “slow”, or retarded, but now those words seem so antiquated. As Mark reached adulthood his parents made sure he had an independent life style and he was living in a group home and had a job. The funeral was to be graveside at Waldheim, the oldest Jewish Cemetery in Illinois. My father was there. I went with Melinda and we stood next to each other behind Ilene and her parents who were sitting in chairs. After the service Melinda turned to me and said “I would like to meet your father now.” I thought she was nuts. I rarely went to the cemetery. It was so far from everything else in my life. It was just so far from life. But that was so Melinda. She was almost bubbly about it. It helped us to get through the day. She even grabbed another one of Ilene’s friends, Sue, to join us in our search for my dad.

I knew what section we would be in before we ever left our houses that day for Waldheim Cemetery, and could not believe the weird twist of fate that Ilene’s brother would be buried in the same section as my dad in a Cemetery that was so huge it took up enough land on either side of a main four lane Avenue to put multiple football fields. When we found my dad’s headstone Melinda looked at it and said “Wow, 1970. It was so long ago. We were so little.” And we were. But now we were adults, mothers, and here I was mourning again. Before I could get too caught up in the emotion of realizing how incredibly tragic it is for a 9 year old child to lose a parent, and then realizing I was that 9 year old child, Melinda blurted out “Nice to meet you Harry” and I had to laugh. I thought to myself, thank the lord for friends like Melinda and Ilene, the ones who fill your life with laughter even when you want to cry. I turned and saw Ilene and her parents getting into their cars. I wondered where Ilene and her brother might have been in 1970 while I was at my father’s funeral. They were probably playing in front of their townhouse on Kedzie with Melinda and her baby brother, dodge ball, jump rope, or Simon Says, who knows? Those are the details that get lost in the tunnel of time. Thank goodness for time.

My mother will be 90 this July. Ilene’s dad has been battling Parkinson’s for years. Yet, it was Melinda’s dad we were mourning first. And like my neighbor Sollie, his passing would provide me with a glimpse into the vast world where quiet men move, changing and shaping lives while barely making a sound. It was sad, but it was also inspiring which I believe would have made Melinda’s dad, Gil, very happy. Perhaps I could be one last person he would touch without realizing the impact. Proof that one lives long after they stop breathing.

Growing up without a father made me shy around other people’s fathers. I was always more comfortable with the moms. At least I thought it was the lack of having my own dad that made the other fathers seem so mysterious. But this past weekend I discovered it may have been more than that. Ilene pointed it out to me. When we were growing up the fathers were not driving us around, coaching teams, joining Me and My Dad groups at the JCC or Indian Guides/Princess at the YMCA. Park Districts did not offer Daddy Daughter Dances. Dads were part of the family but not the extended family, the neighborhood family, unless of course you are talking about Melinda’s dad.

Maybe I did not realize it because Melinda was the third of four and the only girl. So by time I entered her life, Gil’s dance card was pretty full. He and his wife had already adopted most of the kids on their block and their two oldest sons had been coming home for years with friends from grammar school and high school, and anywhere else they may have been hanging out like Wrigley Field where they earned money as Vendors selling hot dogs and soda. Melinda’s family was everybody’s family. That is how Melinda’s family made you feel from the moment you walked in the door. There was always a full house and plenty of smiles. Everyone was welcomed.

Gil’s two oldest sons attracted a wide variety of friends and many of them were in need of guidance, and more importantly a safe harbor where they could rest before returning to whatever chaos was in their own homes. But we did not know that when we were kids. We did not know about the turmoil in other people’s homes and hearts. Gil and his wife Jeanine must have. They made it their mission in life to make other people’s lives a little easier by opening their home and in Gil’s case offering his wise business sense and advice for free to any one who chose to listen. And listen they obviously did, because at the funeral once again I was sitting quietly and learning what greatness is all about. It comes by changing one life at a time, not being famous or fabulously rich. Although it was apparent that Gil was a great success in life and his sons and daughter faithfully followed in his footsteps as would his grandchildren, he wanted more than that. As one after another person got up to speak about Gil it became obvious Gil’s true desire in life was to reach out and improve the lives of more than just his own children. I kept thinking how completely unselfish, and brave this must have been especially in a culture that worships competition and coming out on top. Not to mention he did all this while raising his own 4 kids, building his own business and tending to his dedicated wife.

Gil knew more for others did not mean less for him, or his family. Instead it had the opposite effect. It filled their home and lives with laughter, memory making stories, and an abundance of the one resource worth more than all the money in the world, friendships. Gil obviously knew giving people a chance could make the world a better place for everyone. Not something I expected to learn from a successful business man in this day and age. Not when they are bailing out greedy bankers, predatory lenders and crooked investors like Bernie Madoff. I guess there still is hope. I hope there are more Gil’s in the future extending a hand to wayward kids in need of advice and a real role model, what my mother always called a mensch. I have to believe there are and they will be part of Gil’s legacy just like his own children and all those other children who became like his own over the years.