That whole trip was so much fun. We got a real glimpse into your world. You had your own reserved parking space with the Parks logo and your name printed on it. For some reason, this stood out as being particularly impressive to me. We visited all the different locations on set. I took photos on Anne’s couch, at Leslie’s desk, in Ron’s office. It was delightful to hang out in Pawnee for a little while. That night, we went to a great little Italian restaurant with Mom, Johnny, and Taal. We ate and drank and laughed until our stomachs hurt. It was a perfect day and night. I would give anything to be here in LA right now with you still in it.
• • •
Now, standing there in our fancies, I tell Amy I chose her book, Yes, Please, for our summer reading assignment at school—it’s one of the many books I took from your bookshelves when we cleaned out your house back in February. You were always a voracious reader. The kids loved the book, obviously. I tell Amy that one of my students in particular is obsessed with her to the point of a restraining order. He was so excited that I was coming here and that I might possibly get to see her. She grabs my arm and says, “Ooh, let’s make him a video!”
We all head to an area of the room with more light. Mike Schur takes my iPhone and starts recording. He directs me to announce Amy casually, and then he’ll pan over to her for the surprise effect. (Is he really this great of a guy?) So I say, “Hey Nathan, I just have someone here who wants to say hi to you!” Then the camera pans to Amy. “Hi Nathan! It’s Amy Poehler. I hear that you like my work, and I know that I like yours even though I haven’t met you. So, I just wanted to say, Happy September, keep on being yourself, you seem really cool, and I hope meet you some day. Bye!”
Despite my initial dread and hesitation, it really couldn’t be a lovelier evening. The show has come to an end. We are here to honor you. We are here to celebrate your work with all the people who sat in a room with you every day for the last five years. This has nothing to do with heroin or death or tragedy. We aren’t sad or angry or resentful. We’re just proud. We are so proud of you, Harris.
At around midnight, I walk back to the hotel, barefoot, holding my shoes in one hand and Mom’s hand in the other.
19 Seven Months, Four Days
We all do this differently. Some people find comfort in visiting graves. Others don’t. I go on milestones—birthday, death day, etc. Mom never goes. Dad has been going by himself nearly every Sunday, though he still can’t say the words. He just says he’s going to “the office.” The first time we visit the cemetery as a family is on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, nearly seven months after the funeral.
On this, the holiest day of the year, we are mostly quiet. We feel our feelings independent of one another. Dad walks away and sits on a bench in silence. At one point, I join him, laying my head on his shoulder. I’m not sure he even notices me there. This is killing Dad. He’s seventy-three years old, and every passing day, he seems to move a little slower and grow a little weaker. I think it may actually be killing him.
After the cemetery, we head to synagogue for the afternoon service. We’d debated whether we even wanted to go this year. There will be so many people to face who will be looking at us with pity, as people now do. We decide to go to one service, Mom’s favorite, the contemporary service, A Confession for Our Time.
When we arrive, the only seats available are on the far sides of the chapel next to the plaques of congregants’ names who have passed away. Each name has a small, round light next to it that lights up the week of their Yahrzeit, or anniversary of their death. All of them are lit up for this holiest of days. The cavernous sanctuary must seat a thousand people, yet we happen to sit on the aisle directly next to your plaque: Harris Lee Wittels. There it is. In plaque form. Another permanent record. Seeing it sends Mom into a fit of hysterical sobbing. Her friends swarm around her like bees. The service starts shortly after, so she hasn’t fully recovered when everyone takes their seat.
Much of the service focuses on the ways a person has failed over the year: individually, as part of a family, as a member of society. The rabbi spends a good deal of time talking about the relationship between parent and child. He implores us to admit our shortcomings and decide to do better next year. You don’t have this option, so the whole thing feels like a masochistic exercise. I worried that this would be too much for Mom. She cries through this service every year, dead son or not. I whisper in her ear that we don’t have to stay. We can leave at any point. All she has to do is say the word.
It’s four o’clock when we sneak out of the sanctuary and step into the sunlight. Not yet sundown, so technically not time to break the fast, but in light of our shitty circumstances, we assume God will understand. We get in the car and head to pick up Iris from school together, a rare, and thrilling, occasion for her. When Mommy, Daddy, Bapa, and Momo walk through the door to Iris’s little classroom, she doesn’t know who to run to first. To her, this is a special day.
To break our fast
