Poem for a funeral

A few hours after my father died, I called a rabbi and told him that I wanted to sit shiva. He responded, in a South African accent that had no trace of German in it, "Oh, no, no, no. But I'll send you a lovely poem, about the non-Jewish parent, that you can read at the funeral."

Stunned by my loss, I could only nod. He hung up and I tried to help my brother pack up my father's things, but I didn't know what to do and wandered around uselessly, unable to focus.

A few days later, I e-mailed the rabbi reminding him that my brother and I would be scattering my father's ashes that evening and that he'd promised to send me a poem to read.

It was several more days before the rabbi e-mailed the poem to me-- just the poem, not one word more. He didn't acknowledge that the funeral was past and he didn't offer condolences.

Here is the "lovely" poem:

This tradition, the way we remember our dead,
Is not yours.
But no one has a monopoly on grief-
Death comes to us all.
And I am deeply saddened to have lost you.
You made a mark upon my life which can never be washed away.
Which will never be forgotten.
And for which I will forever be grateful.
Your memory will be for me - a blessing -
That I have known you, and walked with you.
However briefly in this world.
Dayenu - And that will be enough.

I can't describe the emotions I felt when I read it, but I hoped it hadn't been composed for the writer's own father. The emotions expressed were tepid and shallow.

My father wasn't a "non-Jew." He was my father.

Much later, I realized it had probably been written by a prayer book committee and I wondered what kind of people would have written a prayer specifically for a "non-Jewish parent?"

On the first anniversary of my father's yahrtzeit, a non-religious, Jewish woman gave me two gifts. One of the gifts were these words, "It's written in stone that he loved you."