Oct 20 2007
Remembering Ray Scudero - one year today
Originally posted on December 3, 2006
In planning Ray’s one-year memorial, I looked at both the Hebrew date of his death (which fell on November 24th - Thanksgiving [US]) and the Gregorian date (which is December 3rd…today). I had wanted the gathering to fall on one of those dates, but they both landed on inconvenient days, so we arranged it for a Friday in-between - December 1st. It was a nice gathering. But I remember asking myself which was the true anniversary? And what significance did it have anyway?
At the gathering, one of Ray’s closest, long-time friends, Ofer Golany, shared a conversation he and Ray had had shortly after Ofer’s father died some years ago. Ofer is a very spiritual person, peace oriented and heavily rooted in Judaism. He told us of how he and Ray had discussed the Jewish belief of what happens when someone dies.
In Judaism, Ofer explained, there is no hell - only a heaven. After death, there is a one-year transitional period during which a person’s soul is cleansed in preparation for his or her entry to heaven (do souls have gender?). Now, Ofer’s English is good (he lived in the US for many years), but he still selects similar words with a close meaning when translating into English and instead of cleansed, he used washed. “So”, he went on to tell us, “that launched Ray into the question of whether it would be a gentle or a heavy cycle, and would it be in hot, warm or cold water…” How very Ray! Ray’s conversations with Ofer helped him through that difficult time, and Ofer’s conversation with us helped me to understand what the one-year significance is.
On November 24th, I gave thanks for the time I had with Ray, however short, and for the role he played (actually, still plays) in my life. He was a gift to me and his influence will stay with me forever. On December 1st, I packed my car with my contribution to the memorial lunch and set off for Kibbutz Tzora where Ray is buried. I felt distant, as if I were keeping my emotions in a safe, sheltered place where the grief couldn’t find me. At graveside, some of those emotions poked through like an incessant child in dire need of attention, but I still seemed to keep myself in some safe, detached place, as if I were above it all looking down, feeling sympathy and empathizing with everyone there. I didn’t feel Ray’s presence…I felt more alone than anything even though I was surrounded by friends.
This morning, I awoke early after only a few hours of sleep. I felt a deep, heavy, engulfing sorrow in my heart and for a moment, I didn’t understand it - I guess I had dismissed the date because we had already held our memorial gathering, and that should be that, right?
Then it hit me, and I had the answer to my question: This is the date on which Ray died. The tears flooded and I once again felt the acute pain of his illness and death. He is absent, his place is empty and this will be the day of mourning for me, a day of remembering.
I went outside and stood on the stage he built (it doubles as a driveway/parking area) and relived the moment he first showed it to me (he built it single-handedly in one day while I was at work). I stood where he stood as he pantomimed a strum on his Stanley (the instrument in the picture at the bottom of this post), and then, with palms up, presented the imaginary audience to me with a joyful look of “hum? what do you say?” on his face, twinkling eyes all scrunched up in a smile. I looked at the unique wood fence he built around our property and remembered the music parties we held in this yard, how happy he was. I remembered the dreams we planned to turn to reality, advertising his ability to transfer old recordings to digital media as “reel to real,” and the logo we designed for Argaman Studios. With the studio up and running in our living room, he had begun building his unique, self-designed, sonically airtight studio in our yard a little too late in the season. When the first rains came, and they were heavy that year, only the foundation and the base of the outer walls had been completed. I came home from work and Ray sadly announced, “Joey, I built a pool.” Indeed, the structure was so tight that it had filled with water and none dripped out. He was diagnosed with brain cancer some months later.
The studio is gone and the area, once barren, is now filled with wild herbs and grasses. The citrus trees he nurtured are flourishing. The fence and the “stage” stand, and I have hopes of holding concerts and music parties here once the missing of Ray is no longer so profound and painful. For now, these words from It Wasn’t a Dream say it all:
“…but as long as my heart beats strong in my chest,
and as long as my memory stands true,
you will live on in this one little way,
and I will always love you.”
Forever as ever can be Ray.
Ray Scudero z”l (of blessed memory)
June 21, 1946 - December 3, 2005