Sally- My Mother
I want everyone to wash a window for Sally. When my mother wanted to tell me to do a better job cleaning my house, she would tell me that my cleaning lady forgot to clean something that needed cleaning. For example, when my mom wanted me to clean the oven or refrigerator, she would tell me that the cleaning lady missed the oven and the refrigerator. My mother would add that cleaning windows with vinegar and water left no streaks. What she was really saying was, “Clean your windows.” This morning I cleaned three windows for Sally.
My mother was a strikingly beautiful women whose inner strength grew with every obstacle she overcame. In fact, any strength I have as a woman, wife, mother, and professional I have because of my mother. I thank everyone who came to hospitals and/ or hospice to support my family while my mother was ill. Everyone here today validates that my mother is and was loved. Knowing you are here today would erase every insecurity my mother ever had. I especially want to thank my in-laws, Evelyn and Sol Harris, for driving over two hours’ roundtrip to visit my mother in hospice for 5 consecutive days even after cataract surgery. My mother must know that because of my loving in-laws, I am not an orphan, just a kid who will dearly miss her mother.
When my mother was in the ICU, something was different. My mother had confronted each medical battle over the last few years successfully. However, a few weeks ago in the ICU, it was clear that this was one battle we would not win. I came home to tell Allen one night how I wanted one more day with my mom in Old Orchard mall, one more breakfast to buy her since I was crabby the last time we did breakfast. I had a huge list of “should ofs, could ofs, and would ofs.” Allen gave me the advice I would give myself. He told me to focus on the time I had with my mother, not the time I didn’t have with my mother. I tried it: I remembered quite a few happy moments: calling my mother at 7:30 each morning on the way to work, eating dinner with my mother and her friends at Lincolnwood Place, spending an entire day being wined and dined at Sol and Evelyn Harris’s Huntley retreat, hanging out in Millennium Park from 10 am until late in the evening, enjoying slumber parties with my kids at my mother’s house, and the list goes on and on.
However, my sadness returned when my sister and I realized that we would no longer be able to share our excitement, fears, concerns, and decisions with our mother anymore. The flood gates opened. We thought we were losing our mother, but then I spoke to a volunteer while my mother was in hospice. This volunteer told me to do what she did with her mother: before my mother passed, she wanted me to agree on a “meeting place.” My mom and I would meet after her passing to share mother- daughter moments. I immediately decided on three meeting places: On the trails where I walk the dogs, in my backyard, and in my car on the way to work. I told my mom over and over where we would meet. The day after she passed away, Yom Kippur, I took a morning walk on the trails and began to talk to my mother. I mainly cried and whimpered “sorries” because I was sorry her heart surgery did not work making her part of the 30% of people who do not take to this operation; I was sorry she could not attend my niece’s Bat Mirzvah; I was sorry she was so frightened as she became increasingly more ill; I was sorry she lost her independence; I was sorry that she did not live longer after telling me that she was not afraid to die, but she was not ready with things yet to accomplish. All I could say was “sorry” over and over.
I went to temple later that morning thinking about the jewelry I was wearing. My necklace was my mother’s gift to me when I turned 40. She gave me her bracelet when she moved into independent living. She was with me when I bought my earrings. It was clear that wherever I am, there is my mother. We did not need a meeting place because every place is a meeting place to remember and spiritually talk to my mother. Since my mother heard that the most difficult part of dying is being forgotten, I know that I will be meeting with her regularly. For instance, I will visualize her volunteering behind a table at my elementary school, selling school supplies to kids heading from the cafeteria to the playground. I bought a hammerhead eraser from my mom that day. I will relive summer excursions to Skokie pool where I played with my mother in the water. Her legs are straddled and I swim under water, between her legs. I reminded her of this story in the ICU when she hardly conscious, but conscious enough to smile in remembrance of these summer days.
When I see a bicycle, I will also be on a bike heading to buy a snow cone with money my mother gave me. Every time I rush through a task, I will hear my mother whisper in my ear her favorite words of wisdom: “If you don’t use your head, you will use you feet.” When I see banana bread or zucchini bread on the food table at work, I will go to my meeting place with my mother, smelling all of her freshly baked breads that attracted half of Skokie’s teenage population in our tiny house. Sewing kits bring me to my mother laboring over her sewing machine making skirts and my prom garter belt. When Samantha & Evan complain about my cooking, my meeting place takes me to my first apartment when my mother discovered her barrels of uneaten frozen soup that she sent me.
When I see a baby, my meeting place takes me to my kids after they are born. My mother springs to action, helping me in any way possible. When my kids and I take a day trip, I will thank my mother for all of our memories at Kohl’s children’s museum, cultural museums, and Botanic Gardens. My chapped hands will take me to my mother pedaling hand cream. I will also remember her chapped hands that soothingly scratched and massaged my back before bedtime.
Still, just in case my mother remembers those three meeting places, I will continue to talk to her in my car on the way to work, on the trails, and in my backyard. On the trails, I will thank my mother for fighting in her last two months through her medical ordeals. Her strength allowed us kids extra time with our mother. Without her perseverance, the three of us would not have had our countless living memorials in my mother’s hospital and hospice rooms. Sally gave us the gift of peace and closure.
I will then tell my mother her loving chaos in hospice: grandchildren playing, her children remembering, a harpist calming, children’s spouses honoring, friends and relatives consoling, a shiatsu massage comforting, visitors reassuring, volunteers empathizing, and nurses tending.
In the backyard, I will thank her for role- modeling the art of being an adoring and selfless mother. I can see us curled up on a black couch in the kitchen while reading my favorite book, “Digging- est Dog” so many times that she saved the book for Evan. I will remember her standing up to my father when our dog, Bingo became ill. When my dad suggested that Bingo just be put in the sun, my mom threatened to put my dad in the sun when he became ill. I hear her congratulating me for showing up to run the cross country race, even though I came near last place. I hear my mother telling me how beautiful I am even though the mirror reflects back my thick glasses, braces, and uncontrollable hair.
My mother kept saying in the ICU that she wanted to go home. Recent road construction altered the funeral processional to pass directly in front of my mother’s independent place apartment. My mother is now home with my father, her mother, and her many other lost loved ones.
My mother’s soul lives within mine. Our meeting places will bring her the immortality of a person never forgotten. I love you, mom. I will think of you every day of my life. Wherever I am, there you are.
