Trees, Bread, and Apples

Stale Bread

This morning I ate a stale pumpernickel bagel left over from my mother’s Shiva. I have not eaten a bagel in over 20 years. My mother always ate the same thing for breakfast (toast and cheese) and so have I (cereal and fruit).

The metamorphosis has begun to pick up speed with my mother’s passing. When people said “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” I would joke back, “in my situation the apple never even fell off the tree.” Now the tree is gone and the apple lies on the ground detached and rotting. Over the last decade or so my mother’s reply to anyone who asked how she was feeling was “rotten” or “one foot on the grave, the other on a banana peel.” I was almost tempted to place a banana on top of her coffin during the funeral. But she and I would have been the only ones to find it funny so I did not. She may have said those things, but she kept loving life and never wanted to miss a game of Bingo or a chance to play cards. She said a lot of things and at the time that bothered me but I knew better, and I always looked at what she did, how she lived, and tuned out the words. Now I think I should look behind the words. There were hidden meanings and feelings she needed to share but did not know how. That will be the journey I am on now.

I am the apple from Becky’s tree. An apple is the fruit that got Adam and Eve tossed out of the Garden of Eden. My mother’s love was my Garden of Eden and now I have been tossed out left to fend for myself and my children. I took care of Becky but her Love took care of me. It would rise out of her with a strength in her voice, a timber that felt as if all the world would be listening. Whenever I was most challenged that voice rose out of her. Usually she was moaning or complaining, but she knew when she had to rise to the occasion and be that source of strength for me to keep me going in the middle of a crisis. She knew she had a limited reservoir of strength and used it sparingly. My mother was so wise most people could not even recognize it. It was like having a conversation about physics with Stephen Hawkings when my mother gave advice about life. You simply had to trust she knew more even when you could not fully understand what she was trying to say. Just follow.

Eventually all that will be left from the Tree and the fruit it bore are the seeds. Hopefully they will be absorbed into the ground and a new tree will rise. But for now the apple lays vulnerable to prey, birds, squirrels, rabbits searching for nourishment, and the elements, the wind, rain, and the bright sun if the clouds will simply uncover it..

I sang Que Sera Sera to my mother as she lay still while the last breaths slowly came and went providing the only other sound in the room. I gently laid my hands on her, petting her forehead or lightly rubbing the place above her still beating heart. Hear me Becky, please, hear me one more time, I pleaded. I am here with you. I will never leave. She could not make the same promise. The bond was broken with her last breath… The tree fell. Oh, the eternal puzzle pops up yet again: If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? I have finally found the answer. Yes. The Sorrow is so Loud only the Lord can hear it. It is not meant for mere mortals.

The School of Hard Knocks

My mother often joked she had gone through the school of Hard Knocks, an accredited University established at the beginning of time for all of mankind. Unfortunately, this University does not have graduation ceremonies, diplomas, dormitories, sports teams or mascots. This University has graduates worldwide who do not have a site on the Web for their Alumni Network. But fellow graduates recognize each other instantly. The school of Hard Knocks offers only one degree, and since it is such an arduous journey to earn the degree it is at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of Degrees, beyond Doctorate. Many students from the School of Hard Knocks drop out before obtaining their degree. They give up. It is not an easy Degree to Achieve. My mother definitely had it. It was a Degree in Wisdom. She must have graduated Suma Cum Laude since my mother was one of the Wisest Women I had ever known.

Let The Sunshine In...

My mother took a large dose of Vitamin D every month because she hardly ever spent time outside and when she did it was simply to get in and out of a car. How do you swallow the Sun? Humans need exposure to sunlight in order to thrive so why aren’t retirement homes built with lots of windows and skylights and sunrooms? It is hard to get someone confined to a wheelchair outside, and as people age, their tolerance for wind and cold decreases exponentially so I will continue to post items I hope will help improve the lives of the aging or the incapacitated. Fresh Air, Sunshine and Nature would probably benefit a lot of people who no longer seem to pursue, and more importantly appreciate, the Good Earth, The Sun and the Moon.

Words

The Best Words I ever heard…

“Do your best.” My mother said this to me a million times when I was growing up.
“Did you do your best?” My mother asked me this whenever I came home with a low grade feeling horrible. If I could answer yes she would re-assure me nothing else was required or expected. I did not need to get an A or finish first in a race. I was just supposed to do “my best.” But I never really knew what my “best” was, and I am still not sure. I was not nearly as kind and accepting of her as she was of me. I was always demanding more from her. I never let her simply “be” the way she let me “be”. Her “best” wasn’t good enough for me when I was growing up. I guess that is the true tragedy of all of this silence surrounding my mind. I did not know her best was so unbelievably better than I could ever have imagined. While I was busy criticizing her weight, how old she was compared to the other mothers, her lack of attention to my many childhood needs, she was overcoming the grief of losing her oldest sister who was more like a mother to her, her husband, the sole financial provider in our home, and her own mother, who she cared for with an unsurpassed dedication and loyalty. I silently accused her of treading water instead of swimming across life’s ocean and reaching the shore where I was so sure the goose with the golden egg was waiting for us. She had to endure the unexpected deaths of her entire support system in less than 3 years. I did not realize then, she was moving forward. The increments may have been too small for my still developing brain to detect, but suddenly now I see how very far she really went. Her movements were not just forward, but up, way up. She learned to manage a building, while guiding my brothers and I through High School and then college. She did all that while re-building her own life, making new friends, traveling and volunteering.

She did “her best” and I had no idea what that meant. I only knew I was in hand me down clothes and sharing a bedroom with my mother while my friends either had their own bedrooms or shared with siblings, had Barbie Dolls galore, wore pretty clothes and rode fancy bicycles. I refused to listen and I refused to believe, but now I want to listen and there is only silence. Finally I believe, I believe with every inch of my being. My mother did her best, and her best was unbelievably better than anyone could have imagined. As I grabble with her death one memory keeps resurfacing, struggling for air before being sucked back down by the waves of reality.

My mother was turning 60 and her brother threw her a birthday party in his home. I was 20 at the time, still in college. I remember feeling a little angry that my brother and I were being treated like “guests” instead of hosts. We were her kids, and we were the ones who should have been giving the party. But looking back I can see how childish my jealousy was. That evening I sat next to Bernice, her best friend. They were serving wine and I managed to get a few glasses. I remember my brother and I had bought Becky a fancy ring. He paid for most of it. I was just along for the ride, but we wanted everyone to know Becky’s kids were good kids who cared about her as much as they did. You see, it was hard having a mom everyone else always raved about how wonderful she was and what a difficult life she had and how it was our job as her kids to make life easier for her. The way some of the adults in our life talked to us, it often sounded like we were adding to her troubles instead of helping ease them. It was just another thing for me to resent. After all, I had lost an Aunt who I loved and with whom I spent every weekend, a father who worshipped only me, and my only grandparent. I grew up wondering “what about me, my pain, my grief, my losses?” I lost sight of my mother and what she was doing.

But my mother never lost sight of her goals, her children and where we were all heading. She kept her eye “on the prize.” Even though I was drinking I can clearly remember Bernice leaning over and saying to me… “Your mother is remarkable. Someday you will realize just how difficult it has been for her and what an incredible job she is doing.” I looked across the table at my mother and saw her smiling. She had learned to laugh and smile again and she was never going to stop loving life no matter how hard it got. My mother and Bernice had an unusually close bond and our entire family benefited from the intense love and friendship they shared. It will be just one more thing I have come to realize over the years. After everything my mother has given me, all I have to give back are a bunch of words. Did I do “my best” for her while she was here? I don’t know. I am not even sure I can find all the right words to fill the empty spaces between the letters, the lines and the distance that now exists between my mother and my self.

I know it sounds so crazy, but of all the songs I keep thinking about that remind me of my mother there is a love song written by the Bee Gees that is the one I feel most appropriately describes how I feel right now:

Words:

Smile an everlasting smile
A smile could bring you near to me
Don't ever let me find you gone
'Cause that would bring a tear to me
This world has lost it's glory
Let's start a brand new story
Now my love right now there'll be
No other time and I can show you
How my love
Talk in everlasting words
And dedicate them all to me
And I will give you all my life
I'm here if you should call to me
You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say
It's only words, and words are all
I have to take your heart away
You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say
It's only words, and words are all
I have to take your heart away
It's only words, and words are all
I have to take your heart away

Gifts

My mother’s final gifts:

The last piece of jewelry my mother will ever bestow upon me is the little black button with a ribbon the Rabbi pinned on my dress at her funeral.

Suddenly I am seeing signs behind everything: This morning there were two streaks of white across the bright blue sky, and I know they were left by planes somehow. I remember always being fascinated by those kinds of stripes as a child. But today, they were the bread crumbs left along the roads leading into a distant future where my mother will be waiting for me.

Becky came to my son’s Bar Mitzvah last June and then waited until the following April to pass. We had our last birthday together when she turned 90 in July and she let us share a summer free from pain and worry. She knew I would not be able to bear losing her in March because that is the month when my Aunt Ruth and Father died. That month could not hold anymore pain and sorrow in my life. She waited until it was warm and sunny so I would not have to stand in the cold or the rain while I walked with her to her final resting place. She chose how to live and when to pass. It was always all up to her.

Words…

Of everything she gave me, it was always her words that meant the most.

Eulogy

Becky

I know I am lucky right now. I had the chance to spend precious time with my mother because I became fully aware of where we were heading several months ago even if she did not. I was given full warning to make the best of every last moment. I knew it was going to be weeks or months. It was no longer some vague thought buried under the debris of millions of memories. I was about to become an orphan at the tender age of 49 or 50.

I have not just lost my mother. Over time Becky was my mother, my daughter, my spouse, my partner in crime, my straight man in our comedy team and most of all, my role model. We were both born in July just two days and 41 years apart. As a child I loved that we shared an astrological sign and we would read our horoscope together. My mother and I shared our fate, our bedroom, our disposition, our sense of humor and so much more. And even though my mother held me close to her over the many years, she was the one who taught me the value of friendships and building relationships that would last a life time. She showed me how to really love life when I was growing up, which by the way took me 36 years, the age I was when I finally moved out of the Becky’s building. She led by example. She never turned down an invitation to go out. My mother loved running around with her friends and to her temple. She loved traveling with her best friend, Bernice and working antique shows with her sister in law Lee. She loved volunteering for the City of Hope. She just wanted to be around people as much as she could. The phone in our apartment was always ringing. My mother encouraged me to be that way also. She always said, if someone calls, you go. So I went out the back door to Roberta’s or Michelle’s and eventually to Melinda’s and Ilene’s. My friends all called my mother Becky just like I did. Most parents were Mrs. Stark or Mrs. Porges, but not my mom. She had a way about her that invited familiarity and made everyone feel so accepted and comfortable. She always reached out to the people who looked disconnected. She would bring them into the fold and wrap her loving ways around them until they became part of the group. Becky did not like being alone and she did not want anyone else to be alone either.


Our lives were parallel in so many ways. We were both older when we got married and had children. It was not what I wanted for myself but it happened that way. Looking back I can understand why. I simply was not ready to set my mother free from her worries of losing one more person in her life. Even if my moving out was not nearly as final as death, to my mother just the thought of not having me there created an anxiety I hated seeing. Her fear of abandonment was justified and all consuming. It started so young for her. Her life, like a Dickens novel, was full of tragic escapades and remarkable recoveries all revolving around her undeniable resourceful strong personality. The same personality saved her, her children, and in many cases friends and relatives. It is difficult to be the daughter of someone with so much personality and determination.

I lost my identity long ago when I realized most people never called me by my own name. Since I was a young child, with the exception of my own friends, to the rest of the world I was “Becky’s daughter.” I often introduced myself that way and still do. Sometimes I even forget my own name. Often I have wondered if being “Becky’s daughter” was not so much about who I was “not” as opposed to who I was. Growing up I sometimes resented being overshadowed by my mother’s brilliant presence. Now instead of looking at the name as an act of losing my identity, I view it as a way of finding it. Becky gave me both the strange name and the need to be heard over her loud life. I wanted to be me, Benita Esther Kirshenbaum. As a teenager I got so frustrated by most people referring to me as Becky’s daughter I started signing my full name everywhere, in year books, on cards, on the backs of photos. My friends always knew I was Benita Esther Kirshenbaum.

Now I realize being “Becky’s daughter” is my own identity more so than being Benita Esther Kirshenbaum. Even with Becky gone, I will continue to be Becky’s Daughter. I want the world to know what a wonderful person my mother was and how she loved life, laughter and making the world a brighter place. I feel so sorry for anyone who did not get to know her. That is what makes me sad today. I want the whole world to know a bright light was shot deep into the night when Becky’s spirit left her aching body breathless. I will always be Becky’s daughter, but now I have the added job of being Becky’s legacy. It is going to be a very challenging job and I hope I will be as strong and determined as my mother Becky was in her life. I will never stop loving Becky.


Benita Esther Kirshenbaum

268 Days Until the Big Five-O

I find I am truly finding ….


I am finding things, thoughts, feelings and memories long lost under the rubble of everyday life. I am kneeling in front of my bedroom dresser drawers where I have stock piled my mother’s jewelry and mementos like her sisters long evening gloves, yellowed newspaper articles, scarves and pocketbooks still filled with change. I gather some jewelry to bring to Becky so she can look at it again and remember times gone by and the people who filled her life with love. I am now the one in possession of her mother’s pins, her sister’s pearls, antique jewelry she collected from working with her sister-in-law.

As I carefully pack the treasures from Becky’s life, I am no longer jealous of people in big houses who take fancy vacations and have live in help to make life a breeze. I know everything will be alright. I am not afraid, not of life, not of death, not of failure or success. I have been blessed with a mother whose energy and determination often drove me crazy while I was growing up. A mother who suffocated me and held on too tight, and now is getting ready to set me free. Good thing she held on I think to myself as I count the many strands of pearls she accumulated over the years. I guess “I could have been a contender” as Roberta said but had I been forced from the nest I might also have been a drug addicted runaway constantly searching for something I could not name. Either I would have flown the coup and found fame and fortune somewhere as a comedienne, a novelist, an actress, or I would have taken a nose dive into addiction, or perhaps both like Lindsey Lohan or some other tragic figure whose life is diminished by substance abuse due to an inability to cope. I certainly have an “addictive” personality so it would not have been too far a stretch for me to fall off that ledge. But now I find myself close to 50 and I am surprising myself with my own strength. As I care for Becky I prepare us both for the inevitable. I am slowly sewing an imaginary quilt with which we will wrap our selves and our memories as the coldness creeps into her aching body threatening to freeze the pulsating heart that brought so much love, laughter and comfort to so many.

We have had to solve many “medical mysteries” over the last several months as my mother’s 90 year old body and mind have been put through challenges many younger people would not have been able to endure. She continues to amaze me. Her jewelry collection was tucked inside a dozen different hiding places before she was able to transfer it all to me for safekeeping after we moved her out of our building and she went from being a landlord to a tenant. My mother always looked for a way to enjoy life, whether it was attending sisterhood functions, playing Bingo, volunteering for the City of Hope, or traveling with friends. She was determined to squeeze as much joy as possible out of life. And now I find I am the one trying to squeeze as much joy as possible into the last chapter of her life.


My mother never gave up on her quest for joy. She never gave up on her kids. In the last week she has spent a few times almost coming to tears while telling me how she would sit at the kitchen table waiting and worried about me knowing I was out drinking. As she heard the car door slam and my high heels clicking on the cement, she would run to the bedroom so I would not know she had been up and waiting and worrying. She starts to cry just at the thought of losing me so young and now I am a mother and I think of how it would have ripped the heart from her chest. But I was too young and I had not yet dealt with all the demons we face in childhood. So had I not always come home to Becky who knows where I might have ended up? I made it this far because of her strength. Now I have found it will be the strength she infused in me that will take us both the rest of the way.

269 Days Until the Big Five-0

Kneeling

My mother is mellowing with age. She is getting softer and softer everyday. I feel as if I am caring for a helpless child. She is bringing out the best in me now. The most compassionate, patient and sensitive person at my core. The other day after a doctor’s visit, I watched my sister in law kneeling down next to my mother in her wheelchair and I remembered how I had once kneeled before an old woman I did not know and held her hand and told her how sorry I was for her loss. It was in the early 1990’s when I was working for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago. A co-worker’s brother died. His family was originally from Persia. I went with many of my co-workers to pay a condolence call in the evening at his home. When we walked in he greeted us and pointed to the couch where his elderly mother draped in black sat next to some other relatives. He felt worst for her he said than he did for anyone else. I understood immediately knowing my grandmother had buried two of her own children and how that violated some underwritten law of nature, a child passing on before his parents. I instinctively walked over to the couch, knelt and gently put my hands over her soft wrinkled folded hands sitting on her lap. I did not know if she could understand or speak English. I remember my grandmother usually speaking Yiddish in response to my English. I told this woman I had never met before how sorry I was and how I remembered my own grandmother losing her daughter and her son. She nodded and moved her right hand out from under mine and over so now my hands were securely wrapped in the warmth of her old flesh. After several minutes someone else came over and wanted to speak to her. I got up and took my place among my other co-workers gathered in a corner. My boss was there. He looked at me and smiled. The next day in the office my boss said seeing me kneeling in front of the grieving mother was one of the most incredibly touching and sympathetic moments he had ever seen in his life. It sounds silly, but that comment meant more to me than any praise I may have received for being successful in my job.

I was thinking about those kind words and how they have lasted longer in my memory than almost any other feelings I got while I was in the work force as I watched my sister-in-law talking softly to my mother, her hands on my mothers lap. For a second I was almost jealous, ashamed that I was not the one kneeling this time, even though I have spent many similar moments with my mother over the last several months. I thought of how melancholy we are all feeling on the last leg of this journey. Then I realized how lucky I am to have a mother who inspires so much love from everyone. How my sister-in-law has become my sister over the last 26 years. How my mother went from having one daughter to two and I could not be more proud if my mother won the Nobel Prize, finished the New York Marathon, or built a corporate empire. There is always enough love to spare. That is my mother’s legacy. How did I get so damn lucky? I knew to kneel so many years ago because my mother made sure her children were filled with compassion and kindness and humility.

Kneeling should never be confused with bowing. Kneeling is not done to express subservience, or as a way to beg for something or to show someone else how important they are (e.g. a Queen, or a King). Kneeling is an expression of respect and love. And respect and love should be the Universal Guiding Posts for how we treat others as we move through this world. I did not know that old woman, but I felt so much respect for her and her grief and I could feel how much she must have loved the son she lost. Both her pain and her love permeated the room filled with mourners and strangers. Kneeling before her was the only way I knew how to express my respect for that common bond we all have as humans who love and must often grieve when they lose one they love.

My sister-in-law knew kneeling near my mother was the only way to show her how much her love for all of us is appreciated in ways words cannot. Over the last several months my brother and sister (in-law) and I have wrapped my mother in the love and attention she richly deserves.