moocowinthecity Grieving The Still Living / Modeh Ani
This September my Mom, and best friend, had brain surgery for normal pressure hydrocephalus. She had a shunt put in, and was so excited to be feeling better, walking instead of shuffling, and a number of other symptoms seemed to move by the wayside. This, sadly, did not last long.
I found Fran having a neurological emergency on Sunday, November 14th. I conducted a MMSE (Mini Mental Status Exam). Mom couldn’t pass it: she didn’t know where she was, who she was, who the president was, what the year was, etc. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I knew it was a neurological emergency.
She was rushed to the hospital, where she would spend a number of days, flittering in and out of being able to remember who she was, and who I was. Eventually much of her returned.
I took a leave of absence from work on November 15th in order to take care of her, to provide her support (caregiver, emotional), and to take her back and forth to Neuro OT and Neuro PT appointments, and to coordinate her care.
On Wednesday, December 22nd I found my Mom on her bed again, once again unresponsive, this time unable to move, unable to speak, unable to see me. The fire department helped get her out of the house, and we rushed to the Neurology Emergency Room, which I am so thankful to have here in Buffalo, and so close to my house, at our medical campus.
It was UTI induced Encephalitis. My mother NEVER had symptoms when she had a UTI, often only finding out during a urine specimen test at the doctors. She spent many days non-communicative and non-responsive in the Neuro ER. Finally, she re-awakened slowly.
At first she couldn’t recognize me, then she could, and slowly it became apparent that symptoms that we had attributed to other things for years (like forgetfulness was due to fibrofog, the stopping of paying her bills depression, etc.) was in fact early signs of dementia that we missed. Much like historians can put a complicated situation together in a narrative that we, decades later, can say “wow that makes sense, why didn’t the people living through the event see it?,” so too are chronic and progressive medical conditions often missed, or misconstrued. It makes sense now, because we can look back knowing all we know.
This last incident sped up her progression to Moderate/Severe Dementia.
My mother is now preparing for a new journey, as am I. The prayer that we as Jews say each morning, the very first prayer, is Modeh Ani. It is the prayer where we thank HaShem for returning our souls to our bodies:
מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶיךָ מֶלֶךְחַיוְקַיָּם, שֶׁהֶחֱזַרְתָּבִּינִשְׁמָתִיבְּחֶמְלָה. רַבָּהאֱמוּנָתֶךָ
Modeh anee lefanecha melech chai vekayam, she-he-chezarta bee nishmatee b’chemla, raba emunatecha.
I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great.
For whatever reason, HaShem needed my mother’s soul that day, and chose not to return it. Baruch Dayan Ha’emet: Blessed is The Righteous Judge!
So as I say goodbye to my Mom and talk about her in the past tense, I move forward referring to Fran, who I am now getting to know, and help through the process of getting placed into care, very nearby my house, as we work to determine what our new normal will look like in 2022.
My mother worked hard, every. single. day. to remind me how much she loved me, how proud of me she was. I have had the privilege of having her live with me for the past six years, and my memories of her are love and laughter (in that order). She loved so many of you. She spoke of you often to me, she saved your triumphs as screen shots on her phone, she speaks of you now, introducing many of you to those who surround her, those that can only be seen by her.
I am grieving trips that we had planned to take together (largely interrupted by COVID) and that we now won’t be able to. I will still take them, because I know she would want me to (her joy of life was contagious). I am grieving the incredibly brilliant mind that unravelled before my eyes: the first female systems officer at Citicorp, the woman who came up with the contingency plan in the late eighties/early nineties that Citicorp put into place on 9/11. The woman who read more books than I have ever seen, and who was an awarded fencer (ambidextrous). The woman who was so happy that ALL of her French returned to her the last time she visited Paris, so much so that airport security tried to move her to the citizens line at the airport. I am grieving the woman who ensured I had an education before the Americans With Disabilities act and who made sure I was at the table for my special ed meetings before that was even a thing. I am grieving the woman who made sure to find a synagogue with a special ed class so I could have a Bar Mitzvah. I am grieving the woman who loved science, as much as she loved getting kicked out of fine establishments (once by dancing on the bartop). I am grieving the end of 37 years of guidance, friendship, and of unconditional love as I have known it. I am grieving.
I also know that I will be okay, because my very existence was manifested by acts of revolutionary and unconditional love going back hundreds of years, through countless generations, which eventually lead me to this very point in time, and that because of our collective memory the loss of Fran’s memories are not the end of hers, but rather, now the responsibility of ours to keep.
This is what it means to be a Jew…we pick up the shards of our broken glass and turn them into mosaics. I will not eulogize my mother now, but I will mourn and grieve the mom that I have lost. I will also wait with excitement, and joy, and awe to meet and become friends with Fran, the new woman that she is becoming.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה