September, 16th, 2011: A Correspondance with Jim

jim,

you owe me no apologies for not having written before now. i mean that: i try not to keep score. folks speak from their hearts whenever that happens for them. life is busy: we get to things when we can. you wrote what you did when it felt right for you to do so and, for that, i'm grateful.

as for what you are going through now, when i was in your shoes several months ago, i did call it grief. i knew mom was dying even though she refused to talk about it. i knew mom was dying even though MY talking about it would only make her angry. and i was in grief not just because i knew i was going to lose her, either: but really because i'd finally realized - truly and deeply - that my fictional ideal of who my mom was and what my family MIGHT be had absolutely died. i'd always wanted my mom to be a kind, nurturing, loving, supportive, affectionate woman. she was none of these things. i'd always wanted my family to be the supportive, kind sanctuary i've always thought a family should be, like i've seen in some of my friends' families. my family was, with some rare exceptions, not this kind of family. which isn't to say that my family was awful and terrible: it wasn't. but it wasn't what i'd wanted it to be and what i'd hoped it could be. and my stubborn refusal to admit that earlier in my life caused me great pain and duress for several decades.

so yes: i was in mourning and in grief before my mom physcially died. but that grief, frankly, was my ticket out of my unending stubbornness and the resulting cycle of pain. the grief of those ideals dying was what allowed me to make peace with both mom and my family dynamic before she physically died. i was then able to be present with her for her death without needing or wanting anything from her. and that was beautiful. and i was able to be present for the others without needing or wanting anything from them. and that was beautiful.

you spoke of the price to play in terms of the disease. i think all of us have disease in some form or another. i have a disease of thinking. and as my mom finally surrendered to her cancer, i surrendered to the truth. my mom died and the fictions i'd been clinging to died as well, so i was, ironically, set free. and that surrender led to a much deeper connection with mary, something i can't describe in words, really. but it's a familiar and comfortable connection, something i noticed with her immediately upon meeting her. when her father died one month ago, a bitter irony, i was able to be present for her and am, in fact, now here in idaho for the weekend for her dad's memorial service and to meet her family.

so the ill continue to die, but the living continue to live. mary never met my mom and i never met her dad. but we survive today and continue to love one another in the face of life's continuing uncertainty. in fact, i'd say that the uncertainty of life only makes the certainty of my feelings for mary even more precious now. i understand more fully at this time, why people cling to love. as for what mom wanted for me, well... mom wanted me to be successful and to not forget my judaism. and although her definition of "successful" was far narrower than mine, i have achieved many great successes in my life and now, with mary, a deep, abiding and successful love.

and as for you, sir: there is no roadmap, no one right way, no "best" method. you'll do what you need to do and feel what you need to feel. and all of it will be right, no matter what anyone else tells you. if you see this as one of the last hurdles in the path to growing up, then so be it. perhaps you will come to realize this is true and perhaps not. but you're on the path and you'll find out what all of this means to you in one way or another. if i can give some unsolicited advice, it would only be this: be patient and with yourself at all times, no matter what. you have only one mother and she'll only die one time. you can't be present for that experience if you're busy judging yourself or beating yourself up for any reason.

all my love to you both on this most sacred journey,

d

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 9:43 PM, jim wrote:

Thank you for your thoughts, David.  (I didn't want to communicate via FB if possible.) Very glad you saw this. I know about your visits east to see your mom; I was happy to see you fly back west the first time dumbfounded at your mom's spirit. That made me hopeful and happy. And I was so sorry to hear that later she passed away. (People say "lose the fight" but that isn't quite right. There is no shame in passing on, we all do that, as tragic as it is. The price to  play is steep, and seems illogical, and we didn't have a choice, but we all make it worthwhile while we are here, as best we can.) I don't think I met her, but maybe I did at tim and tanya's wedding. I hope you have solace in her memories and her full life and her successes as a person, not just as a mother. Those successes were real. And I'm glad you are in a relationship! I hope you are in love, maybe that is what you said. I hope so. What a great time to have someone very close. Your mother would want that for you. And I'm sorry I didn't say more then. I thought about that about two weeks ago. "Why didn't I send david a card?" I fell down on that, I'm sorry. You probably weren't expecting anything but I would have loved to surprise you. I still thought about her, and you, and still do. I know you so inadvertently I know her. I think you are kind; I bet you have a very good idea what I'm going through now, or will go through. It isn't grief really, yet, she's here, we talk daily. But the near future does crop up. I dread it. It seems dire; parents always have your back, no matter what happens. It is still unimaginable to lose one. I guess this is one of the last steps of growing up. I am thankful she has her mind, and didn't die when i was young, or in a host of more unpleasant ways. Thank you so much for your offer, I'm very sorry you have the experience that makes your offer attractive and no doubt helpful. love, Jim

June 23rd, 2011: A Gentle Surrender

Jamie and Matthew got the call from Mom's doctor somewhere around 7am: today was the day. They were told Mom's breathing had become labored and to come to the hospital quickly. Then, Dad's doctor, Courtney Snyder, called. My siblings relayed that news to him and Courtney, a man my father actually trained, said that he'd personally prepare Dad with the news. Then they called me. I skipped meditation and showering: time was of the essence. I got dressed quickly but had to take a shit. While crapping, the phone rang again. It was my brother. He was crying. He didn't need to say the words, but stumbled through them anyway: Mom had died.

It was classic comedic irony: Mom shits herself, interrupting our goodbye conversation just a few days earlier; then she dies, interrupting me taking a shit.

I finished dressing, picked up my siblings, and called the funeral home to start the process of executing the funeral I'd planned for Mom according to her wishes. And then, together, we drive over to Albert Einstein Medical Center to have one last visit with Mom. We drove in one car, something we'd not yet done on this trip. I remember that much. But I don't remember how we got to the hospital. I just remember handing over the keys to the valet parking service and then walking inside. And needing to take a deep breath. And Jamie's comment to the “security guards” at the front desk that they needn’t worry about seeing us again. Then we got into the elevator together and rode up to the eighth floor in silence.

There is, literally, nothing you can do to prepare yourself for seeing your parent dead. Nothing. There's no special mantra, prayer or deep breathing technique that will, somehow, reduce the shock of seeing someone you've known for your entire existence laying lifeless in a bed. All you can do is try to breathe and stay in the moment.

Walking down the hall of the 8th floor to her room was like being in a dream. The hall telescoped out to beyond my capacity, a blur of white tiles and beeping medical devices on rollers. As we passed the nurses station, I glanced up and saw a few faces meet mine. And I wondered: how many of these people already knew that Mom was dead? How many knew that we were her children, walking down this hall to see her for the last time? What did they think? Could they understand or were they too desensitized from seeing scenes like this every day, of family traveling from distances near and far to visit their workplace and watch people die?

As we floated in electric silence to the front of Mom's room, her night nurse aid, Mamie, made way for us to enter. Like Kerberos guarding the River Styx, she'd been guarding the threshold. I offered Jamie to go in first. She was the only daughter, she was closest to Mom in her final years and I thought it would be appropriate for her to lead us in. She was already crying on the threshold. But I don't blame her. What awaited us inside was otherworldly.

Mom was laying in bed in nearly the same position we'd left her the night before: arms and feet raised on pillows to help keep her comfortable, leaning slightly to one side. Her mouth was open and so were her eyes. But her skin had already changed color slightly. And it was cool to the touch. If you've never seen a dead body before, there's... there's just no mistaking it: you know right away. There's a look, an energy, and an emptiness around death that is both seen and felt because it creates a silence around it, like a vacuum.

Jamie took Mom's hand and looked into her face and said, "Oh, Mom...  Oh, Mom..." Matthew went around to the other side of the bed and put his hand on her arm and just looked at her, helpless to change the situation. I put my hands on Mom's feet from the end of the bed. They were cool to the touch. And I wept, silently at first and then out loud, for the passing of a woman I admired, respected, loved and, sometimes – in later years - truly despised. And when Jamie had moved away from the bed and sat down in a chair, I moved to where she'd had been on Mom's bed. And I took a deep breath. And I put my hand on Mom's. And I said to myself:

"Do not look away, David. Look into the eyes of your dead Mother. See her. Be here with her now. Do not be afraid. Do not look away from her death. You will regret that. Look upon her and see her as she is now and know that she is gone."

And I tried. But I could not see that she was gone. Instead, the permanence of her life became a powerful illusion even after her death: I continued to see her chest rise and fall as she lay there. I knew it wasn’t happening. I mean, I absolutely knew that my mind was playing tricks on me but the vein there on the left side of her neck... It was beating still, wasn't it? Didn't it move just now? Didn't I just now see that vein pump as it had been pumping the night before? I thought about mentioning what I was seeing but remained silent. Moments later, Jamie said, "It looks like Mom is still breathing," and, relieved, I blurted out, "I know!" grateful that someone else was there with me, dreaming the same lucid dream.

Jamie's phone rang, the same, obnoxiously loud ring she refuses to alter. She glanced at its screen. "It's Aunt Gert," she said.

"Not now," I said and she put the call through to her voicemail. Jamie rarely listens to me, but in this moment — a moment of raw, emotional human-ness — both my siblings followed my lead. "No phone calls right now," I said. "I think we should take a few minutes to sit here with Mom and just... be with her." And so it was.

I opened the curtains that had been drawn to keep the light from Mom's eyes. Light from the morning entered the room. The view out of the window started with the heliport and extended clear across the Eastern half of Philadelphia and over to New Jersey. We sat silently around Mom. We looked at her. I picked up her limp arm, found her hand from under the sheet and put my own in it. Her fingers were turning a shade of blue I can't describe. I continued to see Mom breathing. After a while, I made my way back to another chair. We shifted uncomfortably. Occasionally, someone spoke, a memory here, an off-color joke there. We cried. But we were together, Mom's three children, still there, surrounding her in bed, for one last time.

A nurse came in to remove a few tubes from Mom; I asked her to please save that for after we'd left. I don't think any of us could have beared to watch a person we didn't know manipulate Mom's body in order to disconnect her from the various devices and tubes.

Sometime later, I couldn't tell you how long, Mom's oncologist, Dr. Leighton, came into the room, followed by Marv, Dad's business partner for nearly twenty years. And they both expressed their sympathy. I shook their hands. Crying, I thanked Dr. Leighton for all he'd done to help Mom to survive for as long as she had. He shook his head, saddened, and called her a remarkable fighter. Marv asked if there was anything he could do. Jamie said, "We admitted Dad to Jeannes Hospital a day ago. Go visit him. He could use all the help he can get right now..."

There was a pause and we all looked at Marv. He stumbled out that his schedule was, you know, kinda tight on this particular day and that, well, he'd really need to spend the entire day at Einstein Medical Center and, you know, we'd just need to see, wouldn't we...

When the two doctors left, I drifted down to the nurses station and, over the beeps and boops of the machines there, asked them to please call Goldstein's Funeral Home to begin the process of claiming Mom's body for her final journey. They said they would, of course and offered condolences, respectful to not make much eye contact.

I walked back to Mom's room but didn't sit. "I'm going to say goodbye to Mom, now," I told Jamie and Matthew. "I don't need to see her again. In fact, I don't really want to see her again at the funeral in her casket. I'd just prefer to say goodbye now and leave it at that. And I just wanted to let you know in case you felt the same way..." They both nodded in agreement. This would be our last time seeing Mom. I walked to the left side of her bed, put my hand on hers and leaned over to kiss her forehead. It was cool under my lips.

"Goodbye, Mom," I half stammered, half swallowed. I'd started crying again, quietly this time. And then, looking at her face one last time, I took a breath, turned my back on her and — one foot in front of the other — walked from her room, a gentle surrender into the chaos of whatever came next.

June 27th, 2011: Old Friends

Last night as the Rabbi Rosenbloom led us in Ma'areev services after dinner here at the house, we had a most welcome but unexpected guest.

I got a tap on my shoulder from Jamie who pointed into the dining room. And there, almost hiding behind an archway so that he wouldn't be seen so easily, stood Charles Davidson, my old cantor from Adath Jeshurun, and one of the men I truly loved as a young boy for his talent, his heart and his dedication to Judaism and music. Charles had taken an interest in me when I was a boy as I could sing, I could read Hebrew, I could chant from the Torah and, for a while, because I'd considered becoming a cantor or rabbi myself. He was, in some ways, an unofficial mentor although I doubt he ever knew it then.

And when I turned to see him, I smiled broadly and blew him a kiss. I was, truly, overjoyed. I mean I really love this man and I haven't seen him since he retired as a cantor from our synagogue and teacher at the Jewish Theological Seminary well over ten years ago. I was so happy that he'd come to join us davining that I instinctively turned back to my prayerbook and closed my eyes.  I heard his voice,  that deep and wonderful voice, the same one I remember from my youth, and I was, suddenly, transported through time...

There was time I was invited to lead Friday night Shabbat services in the main sanctuary, something rarely, if ever, allowed for a 16-year-old boy; there were the frequent Shaharit services where I was invited to chant from the Torah for morning minyan; the many additional mornings when, as a Torah teacher, I'd assist as one of my own students to chant from the torah; the singing with Jamie in the synagogue youth chorale, where Charles would accompany us on the piano as we sang traditional and modern Jewish songs, some of which he'd composed himself; the high honor of being asked to read The Ten Commandments in the main sanctuary, one of the only times during the year when the entire congregation must rise as you recite the central laws of the Jewish people.

And then there was the one year, on some special occasion I can't remember, when I was called to read from the Torah in the main sanctuary. On that morning, I was accidentally pointed to the wrong place in the ancient text to begin my chanting. I couldn't find my way and panicked. As a result, I stumbled through my portion disastrously - a very great embarrassment before the assembled congregants - and left the sanctuary barely able to contain my tears, finally breaking down in the foyer, outside. Before even a minute had passed, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, there was Cantor Davidson. He had actually left the services to come out to the foyer to check on me.

"I'm sorry, David," he said. "You were sharing several verses with the reader before you, something we do from time to time, and the Gabbais forgot to reset where your portion was to begin. It wasn't your fault. Don't be upset, it's OK." He hugged me, smiled and walked back into the schul.

When we embraced again — this time for shiva in the living room of my parents' home as Rabbi finished Ma'areev — I looked into his face. He looked older but the same, really. Time is a funny thing sometimes, isn't it? We kissed each other on the cheek.  I told him that I loved him, that I missed him and that it was nice to see him. He spent some time consoling my father. His own wife died of Lewy Body disease, so he was no stranger to Dad's condition.

Old friends are like a healing salve applied to a fresh wound, they ease your pain, lift your spirits and remind you of who you truly are.