My father’s father is buried in the pauper’s section of Peekskill cemetery under a stone inscribed “Eesh Tam veh Yashar”.   “Eesh” is a man.   “Tam” is a word many Jews will recall from the Passover story, one of the four types of people in the world.  “Tam” is the simple son, the one who gets a simplistic answer to his childish question.   “Yashar” means straight, a compliment to soften the blow of having ‘simpleton’ inscribed on your tombstone.

“Ben wrote that for my father’s gravestone,” explained my father when I asked him about it.   Ben was Nehama’s husband, a rabbi.  More about Nehama later.   My father didn’t put much emotion into his explanation, he rarely said more than a few words about either of his parents.

After Irv died I ran my proposed epitaph past a learned rabbi friend of mine.   He liked the couplet, even as I shuddered just now after translating it with google to get the Hebrew words to insert here.

פקיח ונבון

Carved in stone now, over my father’s grave.  Peekayach means clever, wise, sharp.   It was the word I intended as it describes the old man well.   My father was clever, wise and sharp, even if his wisdom sometimes didn’t extend to the most important things a person would like it to.

Navone I’d intended to indicate his modesty.   He was a self-effacing man much of the time.  He didn’t take himself too seriously, except when he couldn’t help it.  When my rabbinic friend signed off on the phrase I assumed I had chosen the right word.  

The word I thought I’d chosen was actually צנוע (tznooah), which means modest and humble.

Navone, it turns out, was an idiotic word to pair with Peekayach, though few will know it.  Peekayach veh Navone means:  Smart and wise, or clever and intelligent.   So much for profound summaries of a human life carved in stone.

Wait.  I am an idiot.   At my uncle’s funeral, an extremely sad affair attended by six of us on a frigid winter’s day, I took a photo of my parents’ nearby gravestone.   I just consulted that photo.  The words inscribed on my father’s tombstone are these: איש צנוע ונבון

Eesh Tznooah veh Navone, which Google translates  “A modest and prudent man”.   Exactly what I’d intended.  My friend the rabbi would not have let me have Aronowitz inscribe a dumb line about how smart and intelligent my old man was.   I am sorry, old friend.  What is the matter with me today?

I am the keeper of what is left of the old man’s life.  I would not be an unreliable narrator, if I could help it.