The 30 or so people assembled at a shaded gravesite on a cloudy, early Friday morning probably didn’t know how much they would be moved.
Alongside an open grave, nine men stood to the right of Rabbi Yisrael Motzen, the funeral’s officiant. They had responded to Motzen’s appeal late the previous afternoon on the Facebook page of his synagogue, Ner Tamid.
“Help needed! True mitzvah opportunity! An elderly woman with no family or friends passed away and will be buried tomorrow at 10 a.m. at Baltimore Hebrew’s cemetery on Belair Road,” he wrote. “We are looking for nine men for a minyan and help with the burial. Please PM me ASAP if you are able to join us. Thank you very much!”
And so, we came.
Across from Motzen, 20 others had gathered, lined up nearly shoulder to shoulder. With great care, 15 of them had wheeled, gripped and otherwise escorted five elderly people, each of them frail, from the two vans that had dropped them off 50 feet away.
The 20 were staff members and residents of group homes for developmentally disabled adults who came to bid farewell to Marlene Schulman, who had lived there, too. Motzen had erred — these people were her family and friends.
In the early 1940s, at age 4 or 5, Schulman was stricken with encephalitis, which caused permanent brain damage, according to a source at Chimes Maryland, the nonprofit organization in whose group home Schulman lived. Schulman’s parents, Herman and Irene, institutionalized her in Vineland, New Jersey. When Herman became ill and could no longer pay for the private care, he and Irene moved Marlene to Maryland in 1981 to live as a ward of the state.
Death notices placed in the Baltimore Sun newspaper for Irene in 2005 and for Wilma, Marlene’s older sister, in 2011 make no mention of Marlene. An obituary could not be found for Herman, who died in 1981. The trio is buried together at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation’s other cemetery, in suburban Reisterstown.
On Sept. 2, “Seeking Kin” located Mark Schuster, Wilma’s son. Schuster said he had been told decades earlier that Marlene, his aunt, had died. Many years before that, Irene had reluctantly confirmed his suspicion of her having another daughter. More recently, his online search for Marlene came up blank.
Had he known of his aunt’s existence all these years, Schuster said, “I could have gone and visited.” He plans to contact Chimes to learn about her and the life she led.
At the funeral, Motzen posited that we cannot grasp what Schulman’s role on Earth might have been, but that the incoming month of Av being celebrated that very day offered a lesson: Perhaps, like the new moon, Schulman lived for the positive purpose of reflecting others’ light rather than projecting her own.
The rabbi explained to the Chimes contingent, most of them not Jewish, that their escorting Schulman to her final resting place was a “chesed shel emet,” the ultimate kindness, because the beneficiary could never reciprocate. The mitzvah, he continued, included partaking in the burial.
A hush prevailed after the Mourner’s Kaddish was recited. Motzen noted later on Facebook that it may be the only time the prayer would be said for Schulman.
Afterward, a few others who had responded to Motzen’s request approached someone from the group home; they had noticed some of the women, Schulman’s housemates, crying at the graveside, and asked if they could volunteer at the homes or visit the residents.
“That’s really incredible, because [the women] don’t have anybody, either,” said Miriam Goliger, a Chimes employee. “With chesed shel emet, you usually don’t see the aftermath. For just a second, we got an eagle-eye view of this playing out.”
The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. Email Hillel Kuttler at [email protected] if you would like him to write about your search.