[Fredslist] The Gift

[Phyllis Weiss Haserot]

Esther - Thank you so much for sharing that amazing story. That is a gift to us too. 
I am so happy for you that you will have positive memories now.
They say it is hardest for daughters to lose a mother. I was fortunate to have had a very good relationship with mine and did a lot to look after her for many years until she passed away 9 years ago. Then we feel we did everything we could.

Coincidently, your mother died on my mother's birthday - April 18th.

Sincere sympathy and condolences to you and your family.
Phyllis

Phyllis Weiss Haserot
President, Practice Development Counsel
Consulting/Coach to the Next Generation
Author of "The Rainmaking Machine:" and "The Marketer's Handbook of Tips & Checklists" (both West 2009)

Voice:: 212-593-1549
pwhaserot at pdcounsel.com  
please visit: www.pdcounsel.com  
and blog http://www.nextgeneration-nextdestination.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pwhaserot
http://www.linkedin.com/companies/practice-development-counsel
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ester Horowitz 
  To: Ester Horowitz 
  Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2010 9:33 AM
  Subject: [Fredslist] The Gift


  The gift

   

   It was January 13, 2010 when I arrived to bring her home.  Mom was living in Florida for 22 years most of which was without my Dad.  She was fiercely independent and nothing was allowed to stand in the way of that.  On New Year's Day she declared to all her doctors and to me that she was done with hospitals, with surgeries, and Diabetes was done having its way with her.   I held back the tears as long as I could but I finally said "you know that you are telling me I could lose my mother".  Using a very matter- of- fact tone she replied "yes".  Her voice sounded empowered and crystal clear as if she had won a victory.  So I told her that if she wanted to come North to be with her family, which was something we had been working on since Thanksgiving,  that she needed to tell her doctors that they had to make her well enough to travel.  With that we set the date at January 17th.

   

  Our plans to fly commercially dissolved the minute I saw her.  She was in no shape to travel but I could not leave her there either.  I made a promise that she would not have to do this by herself anymore.  The conversation was not even an option six months earlier.  After packing up her life and her house so that we could rent it, I airlifted my Mom out of Florida.  

   

  During the packing process I ran across some amazing things about the life of my family and most especially about my Mom.  I learned that my Mom may have had a mild case of OCD.  It was a friend, who was a guidance counselor in a previous life that was helping me pack one evening, who noticed the clues. 

   

  Is that what her penchant for perfection in the minutia all these years was about?  It might have made me understand her better. I came to understand that perfection was an elusive state of being. Once attained, it flitted away as instantly as it arrived.  Instead, I chose to focus on excellence and gently guided my children toward the same.   Perhaps if I had known about my Mom's OCD I might not have done that.  

   

  But also perhaps it might not have driven a wedge between my Mom and me that lasted most of my adult years.  She used to say that she just wanted the best for me.  Her desires to give the best to her children were executed with strong armed tactics wrapped in verbal assaults if we didn't comply.  The meta-message taught was that if it wasn't perfect it wasn't good enough ergo I wasn't good enough.  I came to resolve that problem the day I walk out on my Mom over something incredibly silly. It was thirteen years ago. We came to an unspoken understanding after that. [ I don't know that my brothers have.]  This past July was the first time my Mom said that I was amazing when I came South to take her home from the rehab center.

   

  My packing adventure led to a 10x10x13 box of photos that trace back to the 19th century.  Long forgotten names and unknown faces that represent a lineage not passed on except in pictures.  I was hoping my Mom might shed light on some of the people in those pictures so I shipped the box up North.  Later conversations revealed the images of my name sake - my paternal Grandmother Esther and her mother Anna, my paternal grandfather David - but many more go nameless.  There were many pictures of my Dad as a kid. There was his Bar Mitzvah picture and his graduation from high school.  I never realized how handsome he looked till then.   He never showed them to me.  

   

  I found two bibles that belonged to Grandpa David and my Father.  They were given to them at the time of their Bar Mitzvah's. They were in amazing shape.  I found hand made beaded bags and delicately crocheted table runners that did not look old at all. They were made by Grandma Esther.  It amazed me how well my Mom took care of them.  Her OCD connected the grandparents I never met to me and my children through their belongings and creative contributions.  It is a family lineage to be prized and treated with delicacy and respect.    

   

  There was a box of coins in my father's dresser.  While I doubted any of them had value, it amazed me they were there.  It was a mix of dollars, half-dollars, and foreign coins.  Most were no more than 50 years old. Some come from Romania where my paternal family hails. One or two dated back to the 19th century.  They were Morgan dollars.   As it turns out my nephew is into coins. So I gave them to him to see what they were worth and what should be done about them.  One of the Morgan Dollars is worth $250 because of its color and how well it was taken care of.  Another coin would have been worth $10,000 had it not been scratched somewhere in the early 20th century.  Now it is worthless. 

   

  Then there were the funnier things.  Like the snack size ziplock bags of little safety pins we found in the jewelry box.  They are hard to come by but my Mom made sure she had many.  There were multiple combs that reminded me of when my Mom would sleep on a satin pillow case to keep her hair coiffed between beauty salon sessions on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  The combs were unique and specific because they were used to put stray hairs back in place.   My Mom was a 5'8, model tall, elegant creature of habit.  Tuesdays and Saturdays were beauty parlor days.  She had been doing that since she was 16 years old and kept it up even in the rehabilitation centers.  

   

  As a Mom and housewife everything she did was habitual. Tuesdays and Fridays the cleaning girl came. The king size bed was made a certain way and if the mattress was an eighth of an inch off from where it belong no one could move forward until it was just right.  Thursdays were food shopping days and generally that night we had "bagel night" or Chinese food.  Bagel night consisted of everything we bought at the deli counter that day.  They would be rewrapped and placed on the table in "smorgasbord fashion. On Friday nights it was always pot roast.   Steaks, when she made them, were always cooked with onion powder, garlic salt, and paprika. On Sunday mornings we had bagels, lox, and cream cheese after Hebrew school with three sets of Sunday papers. 

   

  In my Mom's closet were these incredible and expensive suits that were preserved over 40 years.  There were magnificent bags. Some were the same style but in different colors that were now in vogue again.  There was the Mary Poppins bag we nicknamed one year because my husband kept throwing sample sizes of rice crispy treats into it when she wasn't looking on the day we took the kids to the movies. They were about 9 and 12 years old then. It made them laugh.  My Mom always carried so many things in her bag. It was incredibly heavy. How she never got a back ache from it baffles me still.

   

  I had 48 hours to pack up my mother's personal affects.   The crystal set she dragged me to see at a little boutique down the block from my first home was packed gingerly.  My Mom had remarked to her neighbor the month before that she wanted me to have it because I was with her the day she bought it and had it shipped to Florida.  At the time it seemed like it was just "things".  But I was struck at how important it was to her that I was there with her when she bought it. Considering we barely liked each other then.  

   

  I was bringing my Mom to a nursing home the day she made that remark to her neighbor because it was too dangerous for her to stay home and she wasn't well enough to travel yet.  As it turned out there were three separate sets of crystal.  Fortuitously it may become one for each child. 

   

  The items that tripped me up the most among all the packing were the shoes which I left for last.  I made sure that everything in the house was gone by the time I tackled them.    The personality of the house changed as the things were moved out.  It also felt vacant.

   

  My Mom had shoes that lined the top and bottom of her walk-in closet.  They were encased in clear plastic shoe boxes that stacked three high or they were in their original boxes that looked as new as the day she got the shoes.  There were many 3 inch and 4 inch high heals.  Considering how tall my Mom was that said a lot.  Considering she became an amputee 8 months earlier said a lot too. The shoes were 10 years old in some cases.  My Mom was a 9 ½ triple A. It is a very hard size.  Her shoes were expensive.  I remember her paying $200 for shoes as a young adult thirty some odd years earlier.  These shoes were no different.  I wear a nine medium and no one in my family has her size either. 

   

  I decided to tie the shoes together in their containers and store them with the rest of her items that were placed in an air conditioned storage facility down the road that day. I also decided with conviction that someone would need such a difficult size somewhere and they would love these magnificent shoes. The thought that I was packing her life up because she would not return home kept nagging at me all the while.  

   

  As it turned out My Mom won't be. We gathered together today, my older brother with his wife and two grown boys, my twin brother with his wife and three little children, and me with my husband and two grown daughters. It is March 21, 2010 and we gather for the last time as a family with My Mom.  She is terminal.  

   

  There are only weeks left according to the doctor.  It's one week before Passover so we decided not to wait and instead gathered to celebrate in her room.   Even though it has nothing to do with Passover, I duplicated Bagel night with a small dose of Chinese food and some other things to cater to this eclectic clan.  My Mom, who barely eats at all, asked for a piece of steak so I made it her way.  Well done with onion powder, garlic salt, and paprika.  After all it is the little things you remember and keep with you.  

   

  She stayed alert through out the four hours.  Her lips perched in a way that conveyed she was "kvelling" to see her three children and her grandchildren ages 7-29 come by to see her.  She said little, interacted little, but her smile, the few comments she made, let us know she was there, she was present, and she was aware.  At the end, after the clean up, she was falling asleep.  As the last one to leave I kissed her good night as she stated with a smile "it was a good day". 

   

  Her feisty side has given way to adorableness.  Gone is the independence and perfectionism. What remain are the courage and grace she demonstrated through out her adult years and especially in the last 3 years of her life as she fought hard to keep her life on her terms.  Unfortunately Diabetes had its way.  So now my Mom descends at 75 years of age on her terms and we honor her that way. 

   

  Epilogue

  Nineteen years earlier my Father extracted a reluctant promise from me that I would take care of my Mom when he was gone.  The promise transformed into a blessing and a gift. On April 18, 2010 Evelyn Berkowitz passed away peacefully and on her terms.  I think I will miss her most. 

   

  Ester Horowitz

   

   

   

   

   
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