Gone - Vanished

When I was young, my father wrote poems, lovely poems, in Yiddish. In one poem, he called me, his only son, his 'kadish'l, the one who would recite the Kaddish, the Prayer for the Deceased, for him upon his passing. It was a touching poem, one which stayed with me for years, for decades... ...The call came on a December eve, six days before Chanukah. I said, 'Baruch Dayan Ha-Emes,' Blessed be the Judge of Truth, and tore my shirt, a sign of grief. In doing so, I had missed something that I was told... ...The message I'd missed rent my heart, much as 'kind Brutus' dagger had rent the heart of 'his lover,' Mighty Caesar: My father's cremation was scheduled for midnight, a scant five hours away... ...I tried to stop his cremation, but I was in Chicago and his body was out in L.A. It was 1989: No cell phones, no email no internet. I failed. My father's sacred body would be burnt to cinders, his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean, in wanton disregard for Jewish Law, an act of desecration as grotesque as those performed by Messrs Hitler and Eichmann in the hell-holes of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Treblinka... ...I struggled with my emotions. There ensued a battle for my soul. He was my father. I had loved and honored him. Yes, we'd had our disagreements. Fierce ones at times. But never, ever could I have envisioned this, Cremation! What should I do? I was his kadish'l, the one designated to recite the Prayer for the Dead for him. And now? My father's body would be no more. But what of his soul? Jewish Tradition tells us that he who cremates himself has no portion in the World to Come--not even in Hell. Rather, his soul is condemned to wander the Universe as an eternal outcast, begging for forgiveness, shunned by all. Would that be my father's destiny now? I picked up the phone and called my Rav (Rabbi). ...I was instructed NOT to mourn for him. NOT to sit shiva. NOT to say kaddish. Not to mourn for him, for my father, who had meant everything to me, who had set me on the path to loving my fellow Jew and all of mankind. It was too much. I blacked out. I slept... ...It was on a March afternoon in 1990, several months later. I was standing in the kitchen of my small apartment, preparing a meal, my back to the living room, when of a SUDDEN, I sensed his presence behind me. Spooked, I glanced behind me, witnessed the rustle of my living room curtains, saw the window ajar where his soul had entered, and then beheld his apparition taking shape before me, a slight, trembling, bony version of my father, heading straight toward me... ...I cringed. I winced inside. But I held my ground. He approached, closer and closer. When he stood within two feet of me, he opened his ghastly mouth, and in the voice of a man utterly forsaken and abandoned, the plaintive whimper of soul utterly without hope, he pleaded with me: 'Please, my son, my kadish'l. Pray for me. Pray for my soul.' With that, he backpedaled, receding slowly at first--then turning, racing, flying through the window yet ajar, curtains rustling. Gone. Vanished. Never to return. ...