Why I Visit My Father’s Grave Before the High Holidays

“Do you have the garden shears?,” my mother asked. Yes, I thought to myself. Somewhere in the detritus of my garage they were resting on a shelf next to my soiled gardening gloves, a trowel and some leftover fertilizer used for flowers I had planted in my window boxes this past spring. 

They were rusted yet still sharp enough to trim the hedge of the bush that was growing in front of my father’s tombstone. The shears came with me as I made the 90 minute once yearly pilgrimage to visit my father’s grave before the High Holidays, accompanied by my mother and sister.

The first time I visited a cemetery was in sixth grade when my grandfather passed away. Row upon row of tombstones; the sheer enormity of the cemetery overwhelmed me. I noticed some tombstones had a circular sticker on them and others did not. The ones with a sticker had neatly trimmed hedges in front of them and the ones that did not were overgrown or trimmed at odd angles. 

“The sticker indicates perpetual care,” my mother said. “You pay someone from the cemetery to take care of the bushes and they trim them forever,” she said. “That is what perpetual means, forever,” she said instinctively knowing the next question I would ask. 

I decided, then and there, I wanted a perpetual care tombstone for myself one day. “Will Grandpa Bert’s have perpetual care?” I asked. “No, we don’t do that in our family,” she said. “We take care of the hedges, not a stranger. Go find a rock or pebble to lay on top of his tombstone.” I was happy to take on this mission, looking for the smoothest shiniest stone on the narrow pathways that zig zagged between the endless rows of tombstones. 

I had learned in Hebrew school that placing rocks on top of the grave was customary during a visit. Rocks remain unlike flowers which were ephemeral. They symbolized respect and remembrance for the loved one, and so I took a tally of the tombstones close to my grandfather’s grave. Some had multiple stones of all sizes but most had none on top. How quickly someone can be forgotten, I thought to myself. 

When my mother asked my sister and I for available dates to visit my father’s grave before the High Holidays, I was not taken by surprise. I knew the question was coming as the weeks in August rolled by. She lives much closer to his grave in Long Island than I do. My initial thought was couldn’t she go and just borrow someone’s shears? The High Holidays come at a very busy time, with school starting for my three kids and endless traffic to and from Long Island on the weekends. Or couldn’t she visit the cemetery office and sign my father’s grave up for perpetual care? 

But my father wouldn’t have wanted that. He had a green thumb, plotting a small patch of our backyard in Queens with a section for tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers and filling flower beds beside the driveway with geraniums and marigolds. He took great pride in planting everything himself; I eagerly helped him each year. Each night when he got home from work, he would water the plants, tending to their care and ensuring they’d grow and flourish just as he hoped his children would one day. He’d want us, not a stranger, to come and tend to his grave, and he’d want us to be there willingly. Even though we never discussed it, I know he wouldn’t want us to visit his grave because we feel obligated, but rather because the visit tied to the High Holidays is deeply woven into Jewish tradition. And so my sister and I acquiesce. 

My father was not into Jewish guilt, but following tradition meant everything to him. He felt a deep spiritual connection to the themes of the High Holidays: renewal, repentance, reflection and growth. I have vivid memories of sitting next to him at services hearing him loudly chant “Avinu Malkeinu” in our back row white plastic folding chairs, of watching him pound his chest lightly as he recited the “Al Cheit.” 

Now, my sister, my mother and I take turns trimming his hedge. My sister and I do most of the hedge trimming, crouching at his tombstone, removing weeds. My mother takes a turn too, although this gesture isn’t as easy as it was just a few years ago for her. We step back and inspect our work, trimming the edges again ever so slightly. Our handiwork looks acceptable. Though not as manicured as the perpetual care tombstones, ours was a labor of love, an important way of honoring my father as we prepare to usher in a new year without him.