For my Dad, Lenny, who sang but never wrote.

It's cold. The chilling northern wind whips around my legs; I can't feel the tips of my fingers even though my wool gloves. The bright sun shines but gives no warmth in the tent; my knees knock together. The wind tugs at my kippa (yarmulke, head covering), making it want to fly away. I want to fly away. To escape.

I stand and see through blurred eyes at least five hundred others are also freezing. I wrap my arm around her because she needs me and because I want to do it. We walk, dazed and cold. She picks up a single red rose. She throws it down, picks up the shovel and follows the rose with a handful of red Georgia clay. I do the same. We start our journey down the long lonely hill towards the car; she turns to me and says "I don't want to leave him here." She cries. I cry. We cry together. Not for him; Her husband of fifty-five years and my father. We cry for our loss.

We know the comfort of seven days of shiva (mourning) and shock. Of meals brought and hunger abated but not felt. We pray, Jews and gentiles together for the man we knew and respected and many loved. That I loved. We pray together for our loss, our grieving, our comfort.