Every day for nearly a year, the silence at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Cemetery in Reisterstown has been broken by the lingering notes of a trumpet.

Amid the rise and swell of the cemetery's green, rolling slopes, the source of those notes can be found, lips pressed against a gleaming Vincent Bach trumpet, sounding a repertoire of melodies in memory of a woman named Goldye.

It's Bernie Goodman. And since last June, when his wife of 50 years died, he has made a daily ritual of playing beside her grave, where a bronze marker reads: "Beloved Wife, Mother - Grandmother."

It is there that Bernie Goodman stands, in front of a collage of her photos that he sets out, to play the songs that his wife loved best - "More," "There Will Never Be Another You," "When I Fall in Love," "Embraceable You," "Love Letters." He is certain she hears him. He placed in her casket, next to her left ear, a miniature gold trumpet.

The unusual display of mourning and remembrance has drawn the curiosity of groundskeepers and funeral processions. As they drive along the cemetery's lanes, visitors often slow to catch a glimpse. Some, having found solace in the music, follow the notes back to Goodman to let him know that his music touched them.

Others, hesitant at first, even ask him to play their loved one's favorite song, like "Stardust."

Sofiya Shapiro didn't have a specific song in mind on a recent Tuesday when she asked Goodman to play a song for her husband, Borya, whose grave she was visiting on the eve of the one-year anniversary of his death.

All she knew was that when she heard Goodman drop the 24 notes of taps, as he does after each visit to Goldye, in honor of the veterans buried at the cemetery on Berrymans Lane, she had to find the source.

She told him of how she and Borya had been married for 35 years, how he had been her world. Tears prevented her from saying more, but Goodman placed his hand on her wrist and said, "I know, I know."

"Can you play something for him?" Shapiro asked.

Goodman lifted his trumpet over her husband's grave and played "When I Fall in Love." He did not learn until afterward how much the trumpet solo meant.

"He was a music man, my husband," she said. "The trumpet was his first love."

Goodman, white-haired and energetic at 73, used to be surprised by strangers' response to his musical memorial. "Now I understand why. If you've lost a child, wife, husband, mother or other loved one, the memories are devastating. Being alone is very, very difficult. You cry at any moment of the day or night."

But Goodman plays on. In light rain, on windy days, in wintry temperatures, he is at the grave, using music, which was always so dear to them, to communicate with Goldye.

He's not sure how long he'll continue the musical tribute to his wife, whom he called "Butch'm." But he says, "As long as I'm well, I'm not going to stop."

Rabbi Seymour Essrog, who officiated at Goldye's funeral, understands. "One of the greatest human hungers is the hunger to be remembered," the rabbi said. "When you find someone doing something so loving, so beautiful and so regularly, it's certainly an inspiration.

"It's always nice to be remembered."

Sweethearts

For Bernie Goodman, there is much to remember. Their story began in 1944 when, as a 16-year- old Polytechnic Institute student and musician, he first set eyes on Goldye Katzewitz, a petite and bubbly 14-year-old from Garrison Junior High in Northwest Baltimore and her beautiful smile.

They married in 1950, but they were inseparable even before that. As they were dating, Bernie, who always wanted to be a musician but ended up in the uniform rental business with his father, used to pick up Goldye three days a week for lunch - in the delivery truck. And even when he had his own 16-piece band, the Melodiers, from 1948 to 1955, Goldye spent weekend jam sessions at his side.

The couple had a daughter and a son - Randi and Richard - who, as they grew older, jokingly wondered how they were ever conceived, given their father's marriage to his trumpet as well as to Goldye.

The family settled in Pikesville, in a split-level house on Harden Lane the couple would share for 43 years. The kids remember a swing set out back under a tall green tree and a garden that Goldye never bothered to pull a weed from.

Bernie and Goldye were, he says, in every way opposites. Where Bernie was regimented, Goldye was happy-go-lucky. They were never late to engagements, only because Bernie made sure of that. He was tidy, but she would never put the cap back on a bottle.

Where Goldye was stylish, Bernie was plain. At her funeral last year, she was remembered as the grandmother who wore rhinestones and sequins to the family's annual vacation at Rehoboth Beach (joking once that if they made leather bathing suits, she'd wear them, too).

She was also the Medical Arts Building volunteer who helped test hearing-impaired babies; the girlfriend whose friendship you could bask in; the mother who celebrated every birthday with balloons, flowers and cards; and the courageous cancer patient who, on the Sunday before her death, engaged family, friends and strangers in laughter, never letting on the difficulties she faced.

"Goldye enjoyed life, she enjoyed people and, most of all, she enjoyed her family," said son Richard Goodman, 46. "And whenever you were around her, she made sure you enjoyed life, too."

Long decline

In 1991, Goldye began to feel ill, and no doctor could say why. It wasn't diagnosed as pheochromocytoma - a rare tumor that originates from tissue in the adrenal gland - until 1993, when she was in the emergency room at Sinai Hospital. Surgeons operated immediately.

For Goldye, the surgery was the beginning of an eight-year decline. She was on dialysis, in constant pain and hospitalized more than 60 times as the cancer spread to her stomach, liver and an area near her heart.

And still they were inseparable. June 21, at 2:40 p.m., Goldye died at Sinai Hospital with her husband of 50 years at her side. She was 71.

As he emerged from his grief, Bernie Goodman relied on his family. And, of course, his trumpet. He began his cemetery serenades June 29.

He also began coaching teen-age trumpet players twice a week at Pikesville Middle School. The children there call him "Pop Pop Trumpet."

He plays in four rehearsal bands and frequents his alma mater, the Peabody Conservatory of Music. (He began studies there when he was 41, earning a degree in 1973.)

He also recently joined Bugles Across America, a national organization that recruits and provides musicians to play taps at veterans' funerals. His children and grandchildren, who live in Pikesville and Reisterstown, call him almost daily and he visits them often. "They're a great support," he said.

But no matter how busy the day, Bernie returns to the cemetery to be with Goldye. On Thursdays, he tries to be there at 2:40 p.m., the day and time she died.

Some evenings, when other people are gathered at home with their families, Bernie Goodman goes back to the Berrymans Lane cemetery.

After each visit, he sits in his car and imagines an embrace. Then he drives the curving lane that surrounds her plot and, when he comes to the end, tells Goldye how much he loves her.

And before departing through the cemetery gates, he whispers, "God willing, I will see you tomorrow."