Chapter 2

At first, my siblings and I didn’t notice anything. I mean, how could we? My siblings live in Eretz Yisrael. They’re busy raising big families and usually only visit for Pesach. I live in the States just like my parents, but we’re on opposite coasts. So I wasn’t close enough to witness the slow deterioration of their health.

And of course my parents would never mention anything. My father barely talks as is. He prides himself in his ability to spend most of his days in a state of taanis dibbur, even though we kids suffered because of his silence and inability to emotionally connect to us.

My mother, on the other hand, talks a lot — but never about what’s really going on. We hear about the weather, the price of groceries, her acts of chesed and bikur cholim around the neighborhood, the happenings on her block, plus the usual barrage of blatant or subtle criticism of our lives, our personalities, or anything in between.

I remember the first time Ima mentioned that she was having trouble walking to the grocery store. She said it casually, a dropped comment in an abyss of chatter, but I was taken aback. My mother is a born-and-bred city girl. She walks everywhere — to the market, the bank, her friends. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is it your leg? Your foot? Muscle pain?”

“Uchh,” she replied. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I’m fine.”

A few weeks later, my sister Shani and her husband flew in for a simchah and stopped in New York to visit my parents. Turns out my mother wasn’t just having “trouble walking” — she was in so much pain that she was barely leaving the house. She had shooting muscle pain in her lower back and a tingling sensation she couldn’t explain. My father didn’t even know about it because Ima doesn’t complain. And he’s out of the house so much that he wouldn’t have even noticed how crippling the back pain was to her normal routine.

Our family doesn’t do direct, straight-on communication. Because it doesn’t work. We have to mollycoddle our mother, treating her in an indulgent, overprotective way. It’s a learned behavior, one that has been fine-tuned after decades of bearing witness to our mother’s moods. Her outbursts are hard to take, but even scarier is when she withdraws, shutting down internally, like a wounded animal under attack.

“Ima, please,” Shani gently urged. “Would it be okay if we took you to the doctor to see if it’s anything serious? We’ll take good care of you.”

Shani is the most meek and deferential of all my siblings. Her husband Yitz is the opposite. He’s Israeli, a true sabra, and he says it like it is. He also works in the medical field. So when my mother adamantly refused to see a doctor, despite Shani’s pleading, Yitz pushed back. “It’s not a choice. We’re taking you.”

The doctor identified the source of Ima’s pain immediately: It was a herniated disk in her lower back. But diagnosing the problem was just the first part of the challenge. Next was trying to convince Ima to rest, take medication, and alternate between heat and ice packs. Even harder was convincing her to go to physical therapy.

Before Shani and Yitz flew back home to Eretz Yisrael, they scheduled several months of appointments for my mother and even took her to the first session. She agreed to go on one condition: They could never reveal the truth about her diagnosis to the rest of us siblings. They would be sworn to secrecy.

What choice did they have? They knew this was the only way she’d agree to start physical therapy. But at the first available moment, they called my parents’ rav — Rabbi Goldberg — who is intimately aware of our family dynamics. Would it be breaking their word if they shared? His answer was firm and resolute: They must absolutely tell us.

My siblings and I often have what we call “press conferences” on a chat group to share updates. When Shani wrote about what was happening with Ima, the chat group blew up. What were we supposed to do now? Pretend we didn’t know anything? Cajole her into revealing the truth? How could we check in on her if she wouldn’t share anything?

We hoped Ima would stick to her word and keep up with the therapy, but without Shani and Yitz hovering, she slowly stopped doing everything that would heal her, save for popping painkillers.

Then, one evening, she tripped over something on the stairs and fell down the last few steps. This incident I did hear about because my father called Hatzalah and Hashem planned it that one of the medics who showed up, named Avi, is married to a childhood friend of mine. They were in the middle of eating dinner when the alert came. The moment my friend saw where Avi was heading — they live six houses away — she knew it was my mother.

The neis, the absolute neis, is that Ima survived the fall relatively intact. No concussion, no brain injuries, no fractures to her neck. But she did break her ankle on the way down. She needed surgery, plus four weeks of recovery time. Four weeks of staying immobile. Four weeks of not being able to take care of her basic needs by herself. My father hired an aide for a couple hours a day, per hospital orders, but Ima would barely deign to speak to the nurse.

Abba is not a natural caretaker and by the third week, he could barely manage. I only know that because he called to tell me so. Let’s stop here for a moment. My father called me. He never calls. If we talk, it’s because I’m calling him. Not only did he call, but he even mentioned that he was having a challenging time. This, from a man who is not given to expressing a shred of emotion. I immediately flew in for the week to help, leaving a balagan behind at my house (my husband is a tzaddik).

For one week, I returned to my childhood home to fill a role I was painfully familiar with: taking care of my mother, cautiously watching for her mood shifts, trying to shield myself from her caustic comments.

It felt like the longest week of my life.

Chapter 3

It’s normal that when your parents age, you want to take care of them. After all, these are the people who spent their life caring for you, nurturing you, providing for you, and guiding you into adulthood.

But what if your childhood wasn’t simple? What if your parents don’t know how have to healthy relationships and lack an ability to understand appropriate boundaries? What if you’ve spent your adulthood trying to heal from the emotional scars of your early years? What if daas Torah and mental health experts have told you to limit parental contact? What if every interaction with your parents adds a little more scar tissue?

During that one week in New York caring for my mother, there were a thousand emotionally complicated moments. A thousand emotional tests. Some I passed; some I did not.

At one point, I was sitting next to my mother and she was complaining about the bitterness of not being able to move. I wanted to distract her from her pain so I was trying to dream up pleasant activities. I rummaged through the bookshelves and found some old family albums to flip through. Each picture stirred up memories of my neglected youth, but I kept these thoughts to myself and was outwardly cheerful.

“Remember this?” I said, showing her a picture of the day I left for sleepaway camp. It was a seminal moment in my life. For the first time, I didn’t have to take care of my mother. For the first time, I could think about who I was instead of just being an extension of Ima.

Instead of smiling at the picture, Ima tsked and shook her head. “Sleepaway camp is ridiculous,” she muttered. “I don’t know how my friend convinced me to send you. It was so unfair — you got away all summer while I was stuck at home!’

Her stinging comment yanked me back to my childhood. I was no longer a mature adult — a mother of many, a devoted wife, an esteemed graphic designer. I viscerally felt the acute sadness of my 14-year-old self, a girl who had never been emotionally nurtured. My chest tightened and tears sprung to my eyes unbidden. It took every bit of willpower to restrain my emotion and come back to the present, flipping the page quickly to another snapshot in time.

A few pages later, my mother stopped to examine a picture of my sister Raizy. “Look at that outfit!” she laughed. “That girl never had good fashion sense. Even today Raizy doesn’t know how to pull an outfit together.”

I know what Ima wanted. She wanted me to laugh with her, to approve her judgement call about my sister’s fashion sense. To my mother, the definition of a good relationship is never getting into an argument and always seeing eye to eye with someone. She wants everyone to cheer her on and approve of her opinions and thoughts.

In the past, I’ve fallen into this trap countless times. And I was so tempted to do so again now — after all, my mother was in pain. And my sister does have a funny sense of style. Why start a disagreement now? But then I thought, why do I need to belittle my sister to gain approval from my mother? So I opted to stay silent even though it was painfully awkward in the room — a comment hanging in the air without a rejoinder.

Ima couldn’t bear it. “What’s with you? You’re telling me you like her style all of a sudden?”

“No, no,” I blurted out. “I hear what you’re saying, Ima. It’s just that Raizy is an adult and she can make her own decisions. If this is how she likes to dress, then we need to respect that.”

My mother was visibly insulted. She retreated into herself. “You flew all the way here to give me mussar? This is how you speak to your mother?”

She slammed the photo album shut, tossed it on the side table, and stared ahead in stony silence.

In my childhood bedroom that night, I cried silent tears until my pillow was wet.

The week ended. I flew back home. My mother’s ankle never fully healed, so she resigned herself to using a walker. I had blissful weeks where I wasn’t consumed by my mother’s health problems and could focus on my own life and my family.

Then my father got sick.

Chapter 4

My stomach drops when I see the name flashing on my phone’s screen. It’s Rabbi Goldberg.

“Your father doesn’t look good,” he tells me, getting straight to the point. “Something is wrong. He looks like he’s aged twenty years.”

Since I’m the only child who lives in the same country, the calls always come to me. “Did he tell you what’s going on?” I ask. “Did he share anything?”

“No. He just keeps brushing me off, telling me he’s going to visit the doctor. You need to get him help.”

After I hang up, I immediately call my father. It’s 11 a.m. his time, but he sounds groggy, as if he’s just woken up. That alone shocks me. A man of principled discipline, my father has davened vasikin since he was 13.

“Abba, are you just getting up? Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he mutters between labored breaths.

Clearly, he is not. He knows it. I know it. Yet he refuses to discuss it more.

I switch topics, asking about his day. But he’s slow to respond. His speech is slurred and weak, so unlike the sharp, strong voice of my brilliant father. I need answers, so I press him again about his health. “Abba, I want to help. Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

He pauses, and then states with finality: “I googled my symptoms — it’s just allergies. They can trigger inflammation in the body, which then causes sore muscles. That’s why I’m limping.”

I gasp into the phone and that’s enough to set my father off. “Don’t be so dramatic! You don’t need to make problems where there aren’t any. I don’t need you calling me and asking if I’m okay. It’s late. I have to go.” That is the end of the discussion.

I call my mother next, even though I suspect it will be a fruitless conversation. She’s down the block visiting a neighbor and she launches into a monologue before I can ask a single question. “How many elderly mothers are as independent as yours truly?” she asks rhetorically. “I got here step by step with my walker. Took a half an hour to get down the block but I did it without falling once.”

I cringe just thinking about it. But I can’t dwell on Ima’s health right now. “Ma, what’s going on with Abba?”

A long, uncomfortable silence. “You don’t need to worry about our health,” Ima finally says. “You have enough on your plate. Worry about yourself. And besides, we’re doing just fine.” It’s her standard line, uttered with the same stubborn cadence each time. But my parents are not fine, and things are only getting worse.

“Ma, I know something is wrong. You have to tell me.”

She is just as dismissive as my father. “What’s the point of taking your father to the doctor? He’s just going to give us bad news with no real treatment. Listen, sweetie, I’m busy with my friend now. We’ll talk another time.”

Click. The line goes dead.

Chapter 5

The insanity gets more insane. I get a call from my friend Dina, the one who lives six houses away from my parents and is married to Avi, the Hatzalah guy. She knows my whole story and happily listens while I vent, clucking in sincere empathy. At one point, she makes an offhand remark about how her kids are used to my mother’s nightly calls.

My mother’s nightly calls? What is she talking about?

Turns out, my mother calls Avi every single night to help her walk upstairs. Every single night.

“I felt so bad the other day because we were out of town and your mother ended up sleeping on the living room couch because she couldn’t get upstairs to her bed,” Dina says.

I am horrified on so many levels. My mother refuses to get an aide, despite all our pleas, but she has no problem interrupting my friend’s family life on a nightly basis to get upstairs!

Later I find out that instead of using Instacart to get her groceries, my mother relies on her friend to shop for her. Every week, this friend goes to several stores, handpicks produce based on Ima’s strict instructions (“The avocados shouldn’t be too ripe, they should feel a drop hard — get ones that are a light shade of green”), carries everything into her house, and puts it away.

When I call my mother and casually mention that I know about Avi’s nightly visits, she doesn’t blink an eye. “Of course,” she says. “And why shouldn’t he help? That’s what Yidden do for each other.”

She tells me with pride that she spent three hours doing laundry today. She has a whole system for getting the laundry into the basket, using her walker in such a creative way that she can get to the washing machine and scoot the basket along with her. She explains how she manages to get it into the dryer, how she folds it, how she takes breaks in between.

This is what an aide is for! I feel like screaming. How can someone be so comfortable living so dysfunctionally?

I call my mother’s close friend to vent — she’s not just my mother’s friend, she’s a mentor. “I wish I had the money to move into a huge mansion with a beautiful mother-daughter suite attached, and my parents could move into it. Then I could actually help them instead of putting the burden on your entire community.”

“Oh no, no, no!” she replies. “You wouldn’t last a week living with your mother. Even if you wanted to, I’d refuse to let that happen. Our community, we get it. We know about your parents’ limitations. We understand the dynamics. We’re happy to do our part.”

But really, my parents need to move into an assisted living home. They think that getting their neighbors to help with daily tasks is perfectly normal. They’re in denial.

Chapter 6

Every day, there are new questions. So many questions. Where is the line of kibbud av v’eim? Am I allowed to delve into medical issues and get involved if my parents don’t want me to? Do I have to sit there and watch helplessly as they dwindle away? What if helping them means going behind their backs? There’s no black-and-white answer to anything — it’s all gray.

For every question, I have a list of people I call. My rav. My parents’ rav. My siblings. Mentors. My parents’ friends. Friends with medical training.

The questions only get more complicated when there’s a simchah. Recently, I hosted one, and my parents flew in to celebrate. They couldn’t fly alone, of course. My brother flew to New York to personally escort them. For weeks in advance, the sibling chat group was exploding. How do you host a simchah when your parents need hands-on help but refuse to get an aide? Do you take shifts between siblings? And what if one sibling has too many demands on her already? Who takes care of them at night since they’ll be staying in an unfamiliar place? We went back and forth discussing every option until we finally decided that there was no choice — if we wanted to make this work, we had to get help from the outside. But who was going to be brave enough to suggest the idea of an aide (yet again) to my parents?

Yitz volunteered. My mother’s tech-savvy friend set up a Zoom call for her, and all the siblings got on. We shared nachas reports with Ima for a few minutes until Yitz deftly maneuvered the conversation to her health.

“We love you, Ima, and that’s why we all joined together to call you,” he began. And then he got straight to the point, no more mollycoddling. He outlined how we were going to manage the simchah, including hiring an aide, renting a wheelchair, and so on. He didn’t stop there. He told her that they needed to move to an assisted-living home and if they weren’t ready for that, they at least needed to relocate to a handicap-accessible one-floor apartment. After several minutes of speaking, he paused to ask Ima if she had any questions.

She was in a state of shock. No one, I mean no one, in our family has ever been so blunt before. When she finally found her voice, she directed her words to us children.

“How can you let him talk to me like this?!” she asked hysterically.

I knew this would be painful for Ima, but it was so very necessary. How long could we let this insanity go on? With pity in my eyes and a pounding heart, I spoke first.

“Ima, every word that Yitz said just now reflects how we all feel.”

There was a look of betrayal of her face that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Still, I forged on. “Ima, we love you. We’re all so terrified to hurt your feelings and we respect you so much, but we need to have this type of open conversation about your and Abba’s health. We want to help you. We have spoken to your rav and your friends and your neighbors and everyone who is involved in your care and we really want to get you proper medical assistance.”

My mother was visibly shaken. No one else dared speak up.

“You really talk to all these people? To my rav? My friends? My neighbors?” she finally said.

“Yes, Ima, because we are deeply worried and concerned about you. We love you and care about you and we want you to be healthy and safe for as long as possible.”

My mother’s shock turned into anger. “If you call this love and concern, I don’t want it! No one asked you to be concerned about me! Trust me, I’m a smart lady and I know exactly what’s going on in my life. You all make me sound like some invalid who knows nothing. The only thing I want from you is your tefillos and your admiration. Don’t look at me and say, ‘This is what you need to do medically.’ Say to me, ‘Wow, I admire you so much for being so strong and being able to persevere and still smile despite your daily struggles.’ Don’t you dare worry about me!”

She wasn’t done. “You think an aide will help me!” she barked. “I know what will happen if we get full-time help. Your father and I will lose our independence and you children will forget about us! You’ll shrug your shoulders and say, ‘Oh good, Ima is well taken care of. We don’t have to worry about her anymore.’ ”

With that, she slammed the computer shut.

The first thing I did was call my parents’ rav. Did I cross any boundaries by allowing my brother-in-law to start this conversation? Did I just fail, yet again, at the mitzvah of kibbud eim? I was submerged in guilt.

The rav assured me that I did nothing wrong. The pushback we got from her is the same pushback that she gives the rav and everyone else in the community who tries to help. Bottom line: The conversation had to be brought up. We planted a seed that would im yirtzeh Hashem bear fruit at the right time.

I am not so sure. It’s been a while since that fateful conversation and my mother is still traumatized by it. She refused to even look in Yitz’s direction at my simchah, though she did submit to using a wheelchair when necessary and to tolerating the aide. She wouldn’t let us hear the end of it, though.

“It’s the new generation, I guess,” she’d mutter loud enough for us to hear. “Kids don’t want to help their parents anymore. You spend your whole life caring for them but what do you get in response? Nothing.”

Even when we did help her — escorting her to her seat, showing her kavod, serving her first — she’d let us have it. “Thank you,” she’d say magnanimously. “But of course this is what children are supposed to do for their parents. Who ever heard of hiring an aide? Children and grandchildren are supposed to care for their parents. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“Ma,” I tried countering back. “An aide won’t make you lose your independence. It will make it easier to do all the things you enjoy doing instead of spending all your time doing mundane tasks like laundry that someone else can easily do for you. Also, if we have a certified medical specialist, then I can spend more time doing fun things with you instead of turning into your aide, which I’m not qualified to be.”

“Feh,” she muttered in Yiddish.

I know my mother discussed the Zoom call with my father, but he never mentioned it. He responded to the incident in his usual manner: with silence. My brother mustered up the courage to confront him face-to-face at my simchah, begging him to please move to a more suitable home. But Abba was firm: “We’re not moving. End of discussion.” Then he limped away.

Chapter 7

Sometimes, when I’m sitting among a group of women my age, the topic of aging parents comes up. Everyone has their own unique family dynamic and I listen and nod along as they share their tales of stepping up to the plate and navigating the challenges of the sandwich generation. But mine seems so much harder.

My childhood friends, my close friends — they know what I face every day. They try to give me chizuk. “Do you know the zechus you’re acquiring?” they tell me. “Can you imagine all the merit you’re getting davka because it’s so hard?”

But I don’t want it to be hard. I want my parents to be healthy and to know how to take care of themselves.

I’m human. Very, very human.

My brother made a wedding recently and I flew to Eretz Yisrael to be there. I was really looking forward to it because it was the first time in a long time that every single one of us siblings would be together in person. Abba didn’t want to travel but Ima did (that was a fight in itself), and I agreed to escort my mother, navigating the airports and flight, so she could celebrate the simchah with everyone.

The plan was that an aide would step in to help as soon as we got to the hotel. But instead, my mother clung to me, insisting that she wasn’t comfortable with a stranger. I understood — after all, we had just gotten off a long flight and she was in a new environment. So I stayed with her the whole first night, tending to every need. The next morning, the same thing repeated itself. My brother and sisters were busy with their own families so I don’t even think they noticed.

The night of the wedding, I expected the aide to take over, but she was nowhere to be found. “I sent her away,” my mother finally admitted. “Why do we need her when you’re here?”

I was seething inside, but what was I supposed to do? This is exactly what we were trying to prevent, I thought. Of course, this was followed by, I am the worst daughter ever.

It took me 20 minutes to maneuver our way to the table, and when we were finally settled and had eaten our first bite of challah, Ima said she wanted to use the bathroom, but only the one in her hotel room. With a tight smile, I replied, “Of course.”

By the time we got back to the dining hall, we had missed the appetizer and soup course. I was furious. I didn’t fly halfway across the world to miss this simchah! Guilt followed my anger: What’s the big deal? So you didn’t get cold sesame noodles or cream of chicken soup. Who cares?! A moment later, I fluctuated back to anger. We hired an aide for a reason! Why does she always make things so difficult? Then guilt again: G-d put me here because it’s exactly where I’m meant to be. I’m not supposed to be sitting at the table talking to family members and enjoying catered food. I’m supposed to be doing the mitzvah of kibbud eim.

Back and forth, back and forth. I could almost hear the little girl in me throwing a tantrum and stamping her foot. “I just want to enjoy the simchah!” My adult self countered in a calm voice: “You are a fully grown woman and it is a merit to be able to take care of your mother. You should be honored and thrilled that this is your job tonight.”

My mother is no fool. She could see I was emotionally struggling. But instead of sincerely thanking me for my help or apologizing for dismissing the aide, she threw in one of her classic passive-aggressive comments: “You must hate that you have a mother like this.”

What was I supposed to say to that?

You should have known better, I berated myself. You should’ve known this would happen. You should have stayed home or just accepted that you were going to play the role of aide at the wedding.

After I flew back home, I discussed the whole incident with my rav at length. He was actually upset with me. He told me that I didn’t stick with my boundaries. I shouldn’t have taken achrayus for her to begin with. My brother hired an aide and she knew going in that it was part of the equation. My husband said the same. But the older and more vulnerable that my mother gets, the harder it becomes for me to maintain healthy boundaries.

Chapter 8

The lines of what’s “right” with eldercare just get blurrier for me, and they’re always moving. Is it okay to let my parents live in denial? Is that helping them or hurting them? When do we start intervening without their consent?

As of now, the rav said that even though my parents should be in an assisted living facility, we can’t force them to move there, so our job is to make them as comfortable as possible in their home. I’m in constant contact with people in my parents’ community, checking in with them as much as I’m checking in my parents.

The last few months, I’ve been trying harder to get more involved in my parents’ medical decisions. But I don’t discuss anything outright. I slowly and organically weave my questions into whatever conversation we’re having, just as my rav advised.

One time, my father — who is even quieter about his medical issues than my mother — dropped that he had an important doctor’s visit coming up.

“Great!” I blurted out. “When you go, make sure to bring up the disease that Zeide had. It’s important that they know the family history and perhaps they can nip in the bud whatever you have and immediately put you on the correct medication.”

“What did you just say?” he sputtered. “What disease?! What are you even talking about!”

I was flabbergasted. His symptoms are exactly the same as his father’s were. We grew up watching the disease alter our Zeide’s life and it was so obvious to all of us at my simchah that Abba might be suffering from the same genetic disease.

“I just thought it was worth mentioning,” I faltered.

“I can’t believe you would even think such a thing!” he said, aghast. “There’s no correlation! I already googled it. I know what’s causing my symptoms.”

My mother called me the next day, hysterical. “How could you possibly accuse your father of having the same disease as Zeide!” she spewed. Then she proceeded to tell me how knowledgeable she is about the medical world and how smart she is and there’s no way Abba has what I was suggesting.

I can’t fight denial with logic. So I just reverted to my old pattern and profusely apologized for saying something so upsetting.

But I’m left wondering, how bad does it have to get before something gives?

It’s a question I’m stuck living with.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 945)