Second Thanksgiving

Mom, thrilled to be at her brother's house

Family schedules being what they were, we ended up having two Thanksgivings this year; one on Thursday at my in-laws' apartment in the city, and then a second feast on Friday, at my Uncle Walter & Aunt Eva's house on Long Island.

Mom and her brother, my Uncle Walter

Both of my cousins came in with their families and cooked up a storm. We sprang Mom from the nursing home and brought her over to Walt & Eva's house for the first time since her game-changing fall last May.

We cooked, ate, played, took a long walk in the woods, shot hoops and tossed frisbees at the local elementary school, and talked, and talked, and talked.

 

 

Mom sat with Eva (now completely bed-bound) for a long, long time, eating and talking and then finally dozing off together for a bit.

 

 

A lovely day.

Here are a few more pictures, and hopefully I will be back with more words soon.

Burnout Factor

Me & my Aunt Eva, 1992

It has been days since I have written. I am not wanting to write; and I ALWAYS want to write.

I even missed my Hopeful Parents day on Monday (I will somehow write that post and put it up tomorrow, better late than never).

It's not just the busyness. I am always busy.

I am just seriously tired of what is running around on the hamster wheel of my brain right now.

I am tired of death and autism and special needs and medications and doctors and insurance companies and death and care-taking and dealing with medical establishments and death and clutter and real estate and paperwork and death and money (the lack thereof) and death.

I have had too many conversations about cemeteries and plots, about hospice protocols, about funerals.

My Aunt Eva is still with us for now, in that childlike state some people enter in the process of dying.

Annette says she has moments of playfulness and energy when she will awaken and smile beamingly at everyone gathered around her, lift her hands up by her face at wiggle her fingers, the wordless way one plays with a baby. And yet, she is the baby this time.

She speaks rarely, and sometimes in German, her first language. When Annette shared this I remembered something my husband had told me, of how his father, slowly dying in their apartment when he was a teenager, babbled away in the Yiddish of his childhood for the last few weeks of his life.

I'll be seeing Eva today. Saying hello and another possible goodbye. I'll be able to manage a long visit with my mother, too, as Ethan is off on a three-day camping trip, and thus I don't have to rush back to the city to pick him up at 4.

On Tuesday, driving out to Long Island, what is usually a fast, against the flow of traffic trip ground to a screeching grinding halt early on, in Queens. I figured there had to have been an accident, and there were, in fact, TWO on the Grand Central Parkway at the same time.

Eastbound, in my direction, it was just a minor finder bender, but a little further on, Westbound, was a major conflagration. Not just due to rubbernecking, as there was an emergency vehicle in the left lane of our direction, I passed so slowly that I looked over to the other side, just to see what the hell was going on that could snarl traffic in both directions so thoroughly.

And in that moment I saw a white sheet being lifted up, an outflopped arm - tanned, male, short sleeve blue uniform shirt - being placed back within, once again enshrouded.

I couldn't unsee it. It played over and over in my mind. A fatal accident. I tried not to take it as an omen. I was ever glad that I was alone, that the boys weren't with me, that questions did not need to be asked and answered.

Ethan is already a little over curious about car accidents, thrilled with the tale I told him of the near disastrous crash Dan and I were in on our honeymoon.

I have not yet spun for him the tale of the taxi cab fatality I witnessed, was a part of, one morning newly pregnant with him and his twin.

But it came back to mind a lot Tuesday, one tragically dead body calling up the ghost of another.

And really, could everyone just stop dying for a while. I want to write, think about something else for a change.

On Tuesday I made my mother promise to stick around until her 90th birthday in September. "We'll celebrate together!" I'd told her, as Annette, Trina, Mom and I munched on cookies from the Hungarian Pastry Shop I'd brought out with me.

"I'm planning to live to 100!" she'd reassured me.

A promise I hope she''ll keep.

The living and the dying

Eva & Mom, 10 days ago

"Varda, I think I'm dying" my Mother says when we visit her, pulling me close so as not to scare the children. But "No," I reassure her, "you are not dying."

Not yet. Frail as she has become in these past two months, she is robust, sparkling, clearly still full of the stuff of life. Clearly because we have come from my cousin's childhood house, where my Aunt Eva is deep into the business of dying. And the difference is stark, unmistakable.

At this point in my life I, unfortunately, know full well what a dying person looks like. This is good when it comes time to reassure my mother it is not her, that her mortal coil is not easily shook off. That right now she's just having a devil of a time recovering from her fall and broken hip. (Old people heal slow, that's just the facts.)

But it's not so good when I sit with my Aunt Eva, possibly for the last time. I know what I am seeing. There is a far off look to her eyes, a done-with-this-ness to her body, every movement bought precious from a deep dearth of energy.

She is mostly sleeping, and her sleep is mostly peaceful. Her family have come together to give her a good death. Home. Surrounded by the ones she loves best. Her comfort everyone's foremost priority, no pushing, no prodding. Letting this happen as naturally as possible except for the pain part; minimizing that.

A good death that comes at the end of a long good life. It's what we all want.

And Eva has had a good life - education, meaningful career, family, financial security, community. Not perfect, not charmed, but good.

Yet it was almost one cut short, nearly no life at all. As a young teen she one of the very last Jews to escape Germany, on possibly the very last boat out, allowed into this country only because her father's friends had conspired to find a job for him that could be filled by none other - the Metropolitan Museum of Art was suddenly in desperate need of an expert on unicorn imagery in medieval tapestries, and he happened to be the world's foremost authority, imagine that!

Our trip out to Long Island yesterday was good and hard in equal parts. I wanted to be there for Annette, I needed to say goodbye to Eva, though what I said to her, literally, was: "I love you, I love your daughters and grandchildren, we will always be family."

Leaving her side, my back turned, I mouthed my silent "goodbye" closed my eyes for a moment to settle my heart back into place, then headed out into the stifling heat of the yard where the children were gathered, waiting to launch.

We had come with yet another mission, furthering the next generation's cousinly bonding, as so took Katrina out with us for a local jaunt: hours of fun in the Manorhaven pool, a quick visit to my Mom and then late dinner in the town diner.
 

Ethan and Trina looking tough after a good swim

Ethan visiting Mom

As we left I peeked back into the room where Eva lay. Her husband, my Uncle Walter, was sitting close by her side, holding her hand, gingerly stroking it gently as possible, the one touch she can now stand.

He was gazing upon her face as if to drink it in for all time to come.  There was nothing in that room but love and tenderness, and leavetaking.

It's how we all want to go, if given a choice.

A good death that comes at the end of a long, good life.

Surrounded by love.

In relative comfort, in spite of a failing body.

With sufficient children and grandchildren to know your genetic legacy will live on, beyond you.

Leaving behind many who will remember you; in whose lives you have made a difference; who hear your voice in their heads, giving advice (whether they take it or not).

I am expecting a call soon.

Today. Tomorrow. Whenever. (Probably within the week.)

We've had a good run, my family, this generation all making it into their 80s and 90s. But every lucky streak must eventually come to an end.

Sometime, probably not this week, but likely within the year, it truly will be my mother's time.

For a while it looked like she and Eva were running neck and neck for the next to leave us, but my mother has flopped up upon the banks of life, while Eva is swimming hard toward that other shore.

My mom is a tough old bird, after all.

Some life left in her.

Enough to appreciate flowers; a beautiful sunset; a hot fudge sundae, and the nieces (and grand-nieces) that bring it to her, before they drive the short mile back home to their dying mother.

I hold them all in my heart.

Our visit to Mom: Trina, Jake & Ethan

Cousins on the 4th!

Mom & cousin Annette

So my Aunt Eva is not doing well. This past Monday she needed to go from the Sub-Acute Rehab Center (what we used to call a Nursing Home back in the day) that we had specifically moved my mother to, to be near her, back into the hospital.

And so her daughters - my cousins - came wheeling in from parts North with most of their children in tow.

Greta and Mom

This turned into a bonanza of visitors for my mother, and an unexpected family-reunion style 4th of July for me. I LOVE my cousins. And there's a whole post about that percolating. But for today, just a few annotated pictures of the gang and carryings on.

The gang who stopped by to see Sylvia & I on Tuesday

After taking in the new Spider-Man movie as a whole family in the morning, the boys and I drove out to the Island on the afternoon of the 4th, leaving their Dad home to "get things done" around the house. (And he did!)

We stopped in for a brief visit with Mom, and then landed at Chez Heimer, where we quickly changed into suits for a late day beach run to the Sands Point Castle Preserve just up the road. It's a "best kept secret" beach; quiet, LI Sound, with no waves but great swimming.

After the swim we ate a hearty dinner together. Badminton was played. Jess took the girls and Ethan out to get ice cream and then bring a hot fudge sundae to my mom, who was once again delighted by the hubub of a group of visitors.

Although I hear Ethan got disgusted with all the effusive girly-girl-kissy-face going on and declared "She's MY Grandma and I love her and all, but I'm about to barf."

The kids played Apples to Apples, Uncle Walt got a birthday cake, and Jake fell asleep watching TV in the basement. I drank a cup of strong coffee and we headed home, tired, happy, and sad that an era is soon come to an end.

Because this?

Back yard at dusk

Is part of why I love coming out to the "ancestral home" in Port Washington so much (besides the biggest draw: the people I love dearly). The woods and fields just beyond my Aunt & Uncle's house at the end of a dead end street that were the scene of much unsupervised cousinly roaming in my childhood.

Sitting on their back porch, looking out, it feels like you're in the jungle, deeply communing with nature.

And you are. But you're also a three minute drive from a store that sells organic rotisserie chicken, crusty fresh bread, and Haagen Dasz.

It was a lovely fourth.

High Anxiety

I'm not generally a terribly anxious person. In fact, sometimes I go the opposite way and roll too much with the punches, fail to react with the alacrity necessary to a given situation.

And while the uber-anxious among you may be thinking "Gee that's great, bully for you!" I have to say there's a considerable down side.  Because when I AM actually anxious? It freaks me the hell out.

My tolerance for anxiety is kind of zilch.

So when I was single and dating and feeling all anxious about a relationship that was neither here not there? I would often push the other person until they broke up with me, just so I could have some resolution and therefore a drop in my anxiety level. Of course then I would get all mopey and depressed. But depression was much more comfortable to me than anxiety, and THAT I could live with. Not exactly a winning strategy.

So lately due to a bunch of converging crap in my life, I have been feeling more than my usual share of anxiety, and frankly that is making me, well, anxious. But this time there's no ambivalent boyfriend or girlfriend to pick a fight with, to quickly resolve this thing.

I'm certainly not going to speed my mother toward the purchase of the farm just to relieve myself of the jitters around not knowing her actual expiration date.

I'm not going to fire my kids and replace them, even though some other, more neurotypical ones would be easier to manage. I'm kind of attached to them, what with the loving them with my complete heart and soul and all.

And now my Aunt Eva - my mother's brother Walter's wife, mother to my beloved cousins Jessie and Annette - is not doing well.  

Mom and Eva enjoying some fresh air

I had moved my mother out to do her sub-acute rehab stint on Long Island precisely because Eva was in this same nursing center. They had been two doors down from each other for the first week, and were finally made roommates this weekend.

And now Eva is gone from the joint, and back in the hospital. ICU. Pneumonia and what-all.

Damn.

I can see I'm just going to have to live with these icky, jiggly, jangly, unsettled feelings for some time to come.

(You might want to purchase some Ben & Jerrys stock, because I have a feeling that consumption around here is going to go through the roof.)