Is death really The End?

BECAUSE I CHOSE to drive to Florida, I slipped out of Philadelphia a day before the blizzard knocked the city off its feet.

Had I chosen to fly, I would have waited and been snowed in, unable to attend the unveiling of my father's tombstone in Boynton Beach, Fla. The ceremony was planned by my sister Andrea, who lives nearby. For the last 25 years, my parents, Syd and Jeanette, also lived nearby. Now they will never leave.

Andrea is the matriarch, and the most patient and caring woman imaginable. She told me I was expected to speak, as the patriarch.

Hearing that word - patriarch - hit me in a funny place.

Patriarch is the male head of the family, the elder - but not necessarily the leader. The glue that holds our family together is Andrea. Our deal is simple: She makes the plans, I rubber-stamp them. Blind acceptance is not my usual MO, but with my sister there is a trust beyond love.

Patriarch is Greek for "where the kids go for money." I know my money will be accepted easier than my advice.

Dad created the Bank of Bykofsky, famous for its interest-free, repay-when-(or if)-you-can loans, along with gifts for patrons, which included cash for birthdays and special events, help with money for school or mortgage - plus annual family vacations, often a Florida resort or a cruise ship with nickel slots.

I doubt that Dad ever dreamed he would have money to pay for that. In a previous column, I explained that he put his money in (tax-free) municipal bonds because he didn't feel right, as a socialist, investing in the stock market.

On Dad's headstone, some words - husband, great-grandfather - related to his role in the family. One word - socialist - described his role in the world.

On an unusually cold Florida morning, with a wind blowing as if it had something to say, the tightest inner circle gathered at the grave. Most had roles assigned by the matriarch.

An opening prayer was read by great-granddaughter Kimberly, a 16-year-old triple threat - scholar, cheerleader, and high school debater. Her father, Steve, played union songs, including Pete Seeger's version of "We Shall Not Be Moved."

Then it went to me. Dad was dead one year, after 98 years. He is gone, but not really. The way he talked, the way he lived, imprinted his example on us. Isn't that the role of a parent, a patriarch?

Andrea gave me two minutes. Here's a spoonful of what I said:

"If the grieving process now ends, you might think this is The End. But there is no statute of limitations on grief, there is no calendar to tell us it is over, no season for the ache to depart on padded feet."

Andrea led us in Kaddish, the Jewish mourners' prayer.

Dad and Mom were socialists, so the word never held fear for me, and with the rise of Bernie Sanders many Americans are less afraid of socialist bogeymen than the real merchants of misery on Wall Street and Capitol Hill.

Bernie knew Syd, another socialist Jew straight outta Brooklyn, and Dad would be busting his butt to get Bernie elected. My daughter is a Sanders organizer in Massachusetts. "Are you paid?" I asked her, all patriarch-like.

"Nooooooo," she replied, in the sense of, "Why would you even ask a question like that?"

Because fathers do.

Throughout his life, my father worked to organize workers, to teach them to find strength in each other. To him, unions were like socialism - collective action for the common good.

He eventually got his dream job, with his beloved Amalgamated union, first organizing the workers, then enforcing the contract that guaranteed a living wage, a safe workplace, time off, a pension, and health care. He was lucky his boss (another socialist) gave him time to volunteer in the peace and civil-rights movements, and that's how Dad came to march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

His union work peaked in the '60s and '70s, but it had started in the '30s, in the depth of the Depression, when Americans struggled to survive after an economic system was destroyed by unbridled greed.

In those days, socialism wasn't a hard sell. Capitalism had failed the working men and women who had built the country with their sweat, smarts, and sacrifice.

Over the ensuing decades, the federal government stepped forward to curb the abuses and to protect workers and minorities.

Then, the postwar American economic explosion created the largest middle class the world had ever seen. Herbert Hoover's 1928 campaign promise of a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage became reality for untold millions of Americans.

That was good for America, but not good for the Socialist Party USA. The benefits it said decades earlier Americans were entitled to were coming true, but without socialism.

Socialism requires placing the common good above individual selfishness, something Dad practiced. If everyone were like my father, socialism would work, but because they are not, it cannot. I'm sorry, Dad, that's how I see it.

Dad never ceased battling for the underdog, but as he sailed into his golden years, he expanded time for family and devoted more time to nurturing the next generations. It gave him a deep joy.

Without practical evidence, Dad kept alive the dream that some day America would embrace socialism. Although I believe the time for socialism has passed, I will vote for Bernie in the primary in Dad's honor. In the general election, I do not know ... yet.

We now live in an America where millions are suffering, where for the first time the following generation will be less well-off than their parents. Maybe I am wrong about socialism's time.

At the graveside, with the wind blowing as if it had something to say, I talked about how we remember the departed, if we remember them.

For Dad, I know that if a worker is abused, if a minority is oppressed, if a sick person is shunned, if a woman is demeaned, if a child is harmed, and if there is a single person to stand up and shout NO! - in that moment, in that instant, Syd Bykofsky is remembered.

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