I Am Not Crying About My Mother
My mother died on February 25, 2018, in Milwaukee, exactly four weeks after she broke her hip. Her funeral was March 2 in Utica, NY, at the temple where my father was the rabbi from 1957 until he died in 1974. The night before the funeral, central New York was hit with a once-in-a-century storm that left the region blanketed with ice and snow. Everything was closed—schools, office buildings, businesses. It was a miracle that 20 people (including us) made it to the service.
The day after the funeral, Saturday, dawned sunny and warm. By dinnertime all the snow would be melted. Dave and Noah flew back to Edmonton. Elizabeth and I went on to New York City. We’d been planning this trip for months, to hang out in the city and stay with friends in Brooklyn. We hadn’t expected to tack the trip onto the tail end of Mom’s funeral, but Edmonton is 2400 miles from New York and Utica is 240. It seemed silly to me, not to mention impractical, to cancel when we were so close.
My cousin Cheryl, who had flown in from California, drove to New York with us. Her mother was Aunt Freda, who had died two weeks earlier. Cheryl and I have lost so many loved ones over the years that thinking back on our plans now I can’t believe it didn’t occur to either of us to say, “This is probably not a good time for a holiday, while we’re grieving.” In retrospect, I think Cheryl actually did question the trip, but I thought it was because she had a cold and wanted to go home. I convinced her to come with us because the storm meant that the soonest she could get a flight back to Los Angeles was Tuesday.
I didn’t realize I was grieving.
More to the point, I didn’t realize I was grieving. I’d been anticipating Mom’s death since she’d moved into a nursing home in 2013, and even more acutely since she’d broken her hip a month earlier. I thought I was prepared. I don’t recall crying when I got the news, or when I read my eulogy at her funeral and at the shiva service we hosted at our friend’s Brooklyn brownstone on Sunday.
The following Sunday in Edmonton, I hosted yet a third service, a memorial for Mom at my temple. Mom had visited me often during my 25 years in the city. My friends knew and loved her. I looked forward to the service. My niece, Alex, drove up from Calgary on Saturday to attend, since she hadn’t been able to go to the funeral.
Nearly 100 people turned up at the memorial service. Dave and Noah were not there. Noah hadn’t yet had his psychiatric consult, so he wasn’t allowed out of the emergency room. Dave was with him. I told Dave’s parents, two cousins, a friend, and the rabbi why they were missing. Everyone else thought I was sobbing during the service because I missed my mother.
I wasn’t even thinking about my mother.
Much later, Elizabeth told me that when people at the memorial service asked where Dave and Noah were, she said “They have the man flu.” I don’t know what I told people other than Dave’s parents, the cousins, the friend, and the rabbi. I don’t remember anyone asking me, although surely people did. The only thing I remember is sobbing when I read Mom’s eulogy for the third time in less than two weeks because I was terrified that my son was going to kill himself, same as my father had 44 years earlier. And this would be unspeakably worse, unbearably worse, because I was his mother, and I knew he was depressed, and I didn’t help him.
I remember that service. I came up to give you a hug and we cried. But for different reasons….
It seems (to me) that every tear represents a lifetime of loss. Memory is as harrowing as the initial event…but without all facts / details available. Still - mourning arrives as it will, and honoring it through the years - and sharing - is important, and a lesson you are helping us learn. Thank you.