Mummy was a fighter, but this was a battle she couldn’t win
T
his time, it is real.
I feel it somewhere deep inside me. I hear it in my sister’s fear-filled breathing, during the quiet spaces of our phone conversation.
My younger sister Baila, who is calling me from England, sounds more defeated than I have ever heard her. Her voice has not rung this hollow throughout the five years since our mother’s diagnosis. There may have been frightened undertones back then, but none of us thought — could possibly contemplate — that this would be the thing that would take our mother from us.
This?
Really?
Our mother?
Surely, she would fight and overcome! Has that not been her modus operandi forever? She is the strongest women any of us have ever known. There is no way that this — this stupid, horrid illness — could possibly trip her up and spell her end. Not our mother, who had single-handedly taken on British society in the 80s and turned it on its heels; our mother, who had raised us with a steadfast faith and an uncompromising level of menschlichkeit, not to mention her ever-ready chuckle; our mother, who stood for no nonsense, but whose heart had melted when her grandchildren first broke the dishwasher, then poured out all her shampoos and conditioners into the bathtub to make rainbows, and finally, quietly rearranged all the beautiful works of art she had collected over the year. All within the first few hours of our visit to London from Toronto, back in the day.
Not Mummy!
She would fight. And she would win. For that is — has always been — the story of her life.
But this phone call sounds different. There is no backdrop of laughter, no casual quality to the words. This is the real thing. Dread replaces optimism and something heavy — a slick, oily substance — infiltrates my body. I move in slow motion as I replace the receiver and walk over to my husband’s office to fill him in on the latest. He does not say a word, but turns on his computer and searches for flights.
Our youngest daughter, Aidela, is only two years old. It occurs to me then, in spite of all we have done, that she and the rest of our children may never know my mother properly. Yes, Mummy has seen them all, spent summers with them, bought them things and loved them to bits, but she may never actually see them to the chuppah, and they may never get the chance to value her properly. This thought brands a hole in my heart. I never thought this possible. I cannot accept it.
I go out onto the porch for some air. My husband, Shmuel Yosef, is on the phone. I hear his voice. He is arranging the fastest ticket to London from this side of the Atlantic. I have to get there, before everything turns black.
I call my sister back on the other line.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I say, sitting on one of the Adirondack chairs that seems to have been placed there for exactly this moment.
“Well, she’s in a deep sleep.…”
“So? She’s been that way before, why are you interpreting this so badly?”
“Ester… she’s calling your name.”
“My name?”
“Everyone’s name. She’s never done that before. She’s in a deep sleep, but she keeps calling out our names, even though she’s sleeping.”
“Oh. I see. I’m coming.”
Pause.
“Baila? You still there?”
“Yeah…”
“I’m scared…”
“Me too!”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Hurry.”
My neighbor pulls into her driveway as I hang up from my sister. I love this neighbor. We have lived for years next door to one another, sharing the lawn, and she has never given me a moment’s angst. She is all smiles and good cheer until she sees my face. She stops short.
“What is it?”
“My mother—” I can’t bring myself to say anything else.
She allows her purse to fall as she strides across the grass. “She’ll be fine,” she tries to reassure me. “You’ve been through this before.”
I shake my head. “She’s calling our names….”
“I see….” My neighbor is young. She has not yet learned that there are no words, no magic combination of letters that will alleviate such a pain. “Oh, Ester, I’m so sorry. What can I say? Do?”
“Nothing. There is nothing to say and nothing to do. I just have to get there. That’s all.”
“Can I make you some food?”
Food? Ahhh, yes, food. No. I cannot think about food. I shake my head. “Thanks… but no. I can’t think about food right now.”
“Can I daven?”
Yes. “Yes,” I articulate. “Thank you, yes.” I give her my mother’s name.
She finds her purse on the lawn, where she had dropped it, and rummages for a bit of paper. She pulls out an old receipt and scribbles down my mother’s name just as one of her small children starts to cry.
“I’ll be okay,” I tell her. “You go see to your kids.”
My neighbor gathers her little one and goes inside her house. I watch her and am filled with warmth; how blessed am I to have her living next door to me.
Shmuel Yosef comes to the front door, “Pack,” he says. “I’m taking you to the airport in half an hour.” I cannot feel my body. I float up the stairs and strange hands reach out and pull clothing from drawers, closets, and dressers. A suitcase appears and accepts all the outfits those disembodied hands have selected.
I am in the front seat of our car. Aidela is strapped in to the car seat behind us. The other children won’t be home from school until four, when Shmuel Yosef will have returned from taking me to the airport. It is spring, but it’s cold. The sky is the color of clay and the streets are wet. This perfect English weather reflects the despondency growing inside me. I realize I have never wanted to face this day.
I am not ready to live in a world without my mother.
She warned me this was going to happen. No one leaves this world with the same people who were at their birth. She had already given me so many things from her collections. If I wanted, I could have taken tons of her jewelry. I didn’t want it. I wanted her to have it. For her to use it. For her to take pleasure in simply wearing it. Just like all the times I can remember, sitting on her bed, watching her get ready to go out. Or when she would come to visit us in Toronto, and I would watch her unpack her suitcases, like a treasure box. She would take out each item and hold it up for my inspection. A new dress, a splendidly comfortable and at the same time elegant pair of sandals. “And look, Ester, look at this new piece. Isn’t it stunning?” She would be holding out a brooch, or a pair of earrings. “I knew you would love it!” she would exclaim. “It’s yours!” and she would press the finery into my hand.
I am not ready to live in a world that does not have her laughter, her flamboyance, her wisdom, and above all, her love.
I do not want to fly, but I fly. I do not want to disembark, but I disembark. I do not want to go through immigration, but I go through immigration. And lo! On the other side of the barrier, I spy my older brother coming in from New York, pulling his small suitcase, his scarf dangling between the wheels. I call to him, “Zvi! Zvi!” I watch his sudden jerk at the sound of his name. He stops and turns, not sure if he is imagining his name being shrieked across Heathrow airport. He sees me. He smiles and waves and waits.
I suddenly feel lighter. My brother is waiting for me. We will ride to our mother together. From this moment on, I will not be facing this ordeal, this torment, alone. We will endure this together. My siblings and I.
The taxi ride is a blur. The sky is typical English white. The clouds are high; they do not hold much water. Perhaps it will rain tonight.
What will be tonight?
Zvi and I exchange memories. We find ourselves laughing, the funniest recollections make us snort.
We arrive at Schonfeld Square in Stamford Hill, a beautiful blend of dignified, well-appointed housing estates that accommodate young families on one side and the elderly on the other. At 62, Mummy isn’t elderly — just frail from five years of battle. I cannot resent her being in Schonfeld Square, because everyone is simply too lovely here. It is too perfect a setting to harbor umbrage.
Baila greets us as we enter Mummy’s room. The oldest of us — Chana Kayla — has already arrived from Montreal and is speaking with the matron and the medical staff. Mummy’s brother — Uncle Shaul — is set to land shortly. Our three other brothers — Yehuda, Levi, and Sruly — are all present, congregating outside the French doors on the patio that leads to the magnificent gardens. We greet one another with a rare mixture of combined grief and playfulness. It has been too long since we have all been together, under one ceiling.
Mummy is regal. Even in her deep, deep sleep, she is beautiful. She is wearing a soft pink velour snood, trimmed with cream satin and a clean, warm, cotton nightgown. She is so thin; we can see the contractions of the two vertical platysma muscles with each faint breath. Every so often, she whispers something while she sleeps. We try to figure out; is it a name she is calling? Is it any of our names? Is it the names of people no longer here? We grow quiet, trying to catch what she is saying. In one moment, we all hear it. She is calling to her son, our brother, who remains five years old after being killed in a road accident over 30 years before. We all look at each other. We do not know what to make of this. We turn to Chana Kayla. What do you think we should do with this new development? She looks up, scanning the walls. Sruly, our youngest sibling, understands immediately. He swings around and carefully removes the picture of Moishie, the photo we all cherish, the one with his mischievous smile, rosy cheeks, and dancing eyes, frozen in time. With tenderness, he places the picture on Mummy’s bed, leans it against the side railing. She is still sleeping, but her face looks more rested. She is surrounded by all of us now.
Uncle Shaul, a Kohein, has arrived, but cannot enter the room. He is sobbing outside the French patio doors. He loves his sister. Theirs is an unbreakable bond, forged within a shared history that transpired before any of us were born.
There is a knock on the door. We are startled. We all look up from our Tehillim, at one another. We’re all accounted for. Who could this be? Someone calls, “Come in!” It is the young Rabbi Levi Sudak, who has driven all the way from Edgware to be here for us, for our mother. We are moved by his presence on this frightful night. He advises us, and we are grateful. He suggests that each of us have a turn for a private audience with Mummy, to tell her whatever it is we wish her to know before her soul departs. When it is my turn, I find myself without words, as everything I have ever wanted to tell my mother, I have already told her. There were never any secrets between us. She knows me as well as anyone can know me. So I tell her that it is okay to leave now, if that is what is being requested, that she need not fight anymore, that if she is being called to meet her Maker, she should go.
“You have fought this illness for five years, and done battle with this world for sixty-two,” I whisper to her. “You don’t need to fight anymore, Mummy. The battle is won.” Then I thank her for bringing me into this life, and for being such a remarkable role model, for teaching me — us — how middos tovos and yiras Shamayim are the only accomplishments that count, and how to dust ourselves off when we fall and get back up again. I tell her how much I love her, and how much I will miss her, but I also tell her that she will live within me, that I will find a way to keep her legacy of laughter and light and human dignity alive.
I hear a scratching at the door. My time is clearly up. No matter, she will hear more from me from tonight and always. I lift myself from squatting by her side. I restrain myself from kissing her cheek, as we have been told it is not appropriate. I leave the room as my next sibling walks in.
Outside, down the hallway, there is a large sitting room with plush sofas and armchairs in every direction. A long table graces the middle of this room, and around it sit the members of my family, including my brother Levi’s wife, Sorale; my sister Baila’s husband, Avi; and a smattering of cousins. Everyone is conferring with Rabbi Sudak. We ask him, how do we send Mummy off? What is the best way? He suggests we say Shema and sing Adon Olam to her. We agree. Then he asks, what were her favorite songs? We all look toward Chana Kayla, the keeper of the family lore.
“She had a few,” our oldest sister says.
“Sing them all,” he responds. We like that. There is a soft murmuring of approval.
What about “Padah Veshalom Nafshi — He redeemed my soul in peace”? recommends Rabbi Sudak.
Excellent suggestion, we concur.
When Sruly, the last of the siblings, leaves the room, we all return and take up our places around her bed. She looks even more at peace than before, and yes, she is still with us. We know this because we can still see her slow, sporadic breathing. Uncle Shaul is a mess outside. He cannot enter, but his energy is felt. His red, puffy eyes and swollen face are hard to process. He has always been, and still is, baruch Hashem, stalwart and substantial. A towering figure of the same wisdom, love, and laughter that defined our mother. It hurts to see him dissolve. I turn my gaze. His is a private pain. His own. Not for my prying eyes.
Someone starts to sing Shema. We all join in. Mummy continues to breathe. We want her send-off to be just right. We sing softly at first, but then something takes over and we put more power into it. Next comes Adon Olam — again, a hesitant beginning, but then, hearty and full of passion. My older brother Zvi begins to sing the niggunim of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We all join him. He goes through all the niggunim of the Rebbe. We come to the end, the final niggun, and we are stuck. What now? Chana Kayla reminds us of Mummy’s favorite Rachem song from Mordechai Ben Dovid, and we sing it to perfection, with harmonies. She is still with us, but her breathing now is not consistent. It stops for a few minutes, then starts again. She gives no sign of struggle. We continue to remind ourselves of other songs she favored; Avraham Fried, Kol Salonika, and the Amudai Shaish Choir all make their appearances around her bed. Songs from our childhood, songs she enjoyed singing with us, with her eyes closed and a smile on her face.
One of us remembers “Padah Veshalom Nafshi,” and we all belt it out while keeping a keen eye on our mother’s respiration.
We come to the last stanza, the song’s conclusion, Va’Ani evtach Boch — And I believe in You.
And… she takes… one… last… breath.
We are very still.
The singing stops. No one talks. We watch her. Will she take in another inhalation? Is this the end? We have lost the ability to breathe ourselves. The silence overtakes everything. Uncle Shaul’s face is clearly seen in the window. None of us know what to do.
“Come now, kinderlach,” we hear a soft voice calling to us. We all turn toward it. Two women are standing just inside the entrance of the room. We do not know who they are or from where they came, or for how long they were standing there. None of us had noticed these two angelic women, in their coats and pillbox hats atop their sheitels. They reach out to us again. “Come,” they say. “Leave us with her. We are from the Chevra Kaddisha.” The tears flow easily now. We are so grateful to them; they will know how to direct us; they will know what we should do. They are Divine, holy beings in the form of two Stamford Hill ladies. They are the sweetest people on earth.
One by one, we leave the room. Mummy has left her body. Her soul is very close to us, for now and forever.
Our heads hanging low, we slowly gather around the table surrounded by armchairs. We do not talk. Some of us cry softly. We are shaken. But inside me something stirs to life, a feeling that demands expression.
I open my mouth. “Could it be…?” I begin. “Could it be that although she had an unquestionably difficult life, our mother merited to have an incredible death?”
