“I want my mommy,” I repeated, sobbing, while the visitors looked on, not knowing what to say

I was lost. Lost in pain. Lost in confusion.

“Where’s Mommy?” I wanted to shout over and over again.

I’d known my mother wasn’t doing well. Succos time, she’d found herself in the hospital. Emphysema had burned out most of her lung capacity and she had to be permanently on oxygen.

Several weeks after the Yamim Tovim, I flew out to visit my parents. It was Daddy’s 70th birthday. A happy occasion, right? How could it be happy when my mother’s life had been so drastically altered?

I felt angry. I didn’t want my mother to be sick and helpless, I didn’t want to have to make applesauce and other light food for the woman who had cooked me gourmet meals. My heart fell into a pit of pain as I watched this vivacious woman who favored brightly colored clothing slowly shuffle around her home, forever trailed by a long oxygen cord.

Almost six months later, Pesach was approaching. Dust was beaten out of every corner, as if it harbored secret crumbs of chometz. Cleaning, shopping, cooking, was all done with military precision. In the midst of this whirlwind, the phone call came.

“Mommy’s in the hospital. She has pneumonia, but she’s getting better,” came Dad’s tired voice. I managed to speak to Mommy almost every day that week. Sometimes I didn’t say much more than a sentence or two as Mommy had to be taken to breathing physiotherapy. Pesach loomed; only three and a half days away.