How could I respond “I love you”? You always ended every conversation “I love you…”, waiting for me to respond in kind. I always heard your criticism in my head: “stand up straight”, “don’t wear your hair behind your ears”, “you missed that note” (screamed from another room as I practiced my singing while taking voice lessons during high school), “why do you need to wear a bra, you have two little mosquito bites?” (that said at full voice to the sales clerk when we bought my first bra). The most disturbing was said across a restaurant table when I was in my 20s…”You are so pretty, I wish I could look like you.”

You were hard to love. You drove my beloved father away. I went far away to college, married a month after graduation and moved a thousand miles away, never to return. Eventually, I established the rule of 3: you could visit 3 times a year and stay no more than 3 days at a time.

Then your sister Ann died and you were alone in Detroit. Rick and I showed you retirement communities and you decided to move close to me. I came to Detroit and planned your whole move. I took you on the grand tour to visit brother Joe in Toledo and sister Stella in Cleveland. I brought as much of your beautiful furniture as I could and decorated your apartment elegantly. You always referred to it as ” that shitty place”, complained about the food and people. You were hard to love. I had you to dinner every Sunday night, one of the few nights that my traveling husband was home for dinner. I talked to Ann’s daughter Lois, back in Detroit. She gave me permission to do less. It became every other Sunday, eventually we went out for dinner. We even brought you to Martha’s Vineyard. How could you complain about this paradise? But you did. We were invited by friends to the Chappy Beach Club one day, but you wouldn’t go. You were sorry when you heard that Patricia Neal had been there that day. Jeffrey showed her his Tomagotchi. You and I had spent that gorgeous summer afternoon inside watching an old movie on TV. Though I live in a historic house in Edgartown where friends from Katama call and ask to park in our driveway when going to the movies, you wanted to be driven to dinner, as if we could find some better place to park!

Eventually you couldn’t take care of yourself, but begged to stay in your own apartment and I hired aides to look after you. You didn’t like them either and treated them poorly. I’d come visit occasionally and take you to all your doctor’s appointments. You begged not to be moved to skilled nursing but the choice was made for us when you slipped on the bathroom floor and couldn’t get up. You claimed you had fallen asleep there after watching the Oscars, but the hospital doctor said you must be in the skilled nursing unit. There you were well looked-after and I came in often and sang a program of Broadway show tunes for the residents. The staff were saints. They liked you because you weren’t catatonic and talked about your beautiful daughter, but to me, it was still only half the phrase.

I got the call while showing an old friend around the island on Sunday, August 8. “Your mother’s showing signs of a stroke and we’re sending her to the local hospital”. The next call was from the ER doctor who told me about TPA therapy, but said the specialist would call. I was on the phone with my brother, a rabbi and professor at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati when that call came through. Arianne and I were sitting on the porch at Morning Glory Farm, enjoying the view. Dear Arianne, how appropriate. She’s the granddaughter of my father’s oldest friend; roommates in Flint, MI in 1937 and understands my family shit. I listened to the plusses and minuses of the intervention; of what life might be like for Mother if she didn’t have the therapy: she’d have weakness on her left side, have difficulty feeding herself, perhaps difficulty speaking, etc. I explained that she was a woman with dementia and diabetes, a week shy of 97 years old, wheel-chair bound, already on a non-aspirant diet, so these things seemed of less concern than the possible side effects of the therapy.

Mother went in for a CT scan at that moment. I ruled out the therapy. The ER doctor called back. She was having a massive cerebral hemorrhage. The therapy would have made it worse. I had made my first major decision as her health care proxy correctly. They sent her from the suburban hospital to the Beth Israel in Boston. She probably wouldn’t be conscious when she arrived. I reiterated that she was a DNR. Ari and I continued to the galleries further west, never out of cell phone reach. We arrived back at the house at 4:30 pm. The neurologist from the ER at the BI called me. He told me there was some medication that could be administered. To what end, I asked? It would reduce the swelling in the brain, so the family could gather. The family wasn’t going to gather, since the funeral would be in Detroit, I informed him. He offered his condolences. I had one weepy moment, thinking my father had died alone in a hospital room, now my mother would as well. I asked him how long she had. He said he didn’t know; hours, perhaps days.

I called my children to let them know. David, my older son, was doing a PhD at Columbia and lived in Manhattan. He told me that he was in Boston at that moment, attending a birthday party for a high school friend; asked where she was, went to the BI and sat with her for the next 8 hours through her transfer from the ER to intensive care. He was her favorite and it gave me great comfort to know that he was with her. I received updates throughout the remainder of the day and for the next several days. She lingered. She was a tough old bird.

My brother and I spoke several times each day. Late Wednesday night I had an epiphany. One hears that people wait to hear their loved ones’ voices before they can let go. I knew it was time to get a ferry ticket. Mother had been transferred back to her home on Tuesday evening with their version of hospice care. It was good, as I had their direct line and could call anytime. I called early Thursday morning and spoke with Sharon, the head nurse, who I knew well. When she came back from checking on my mother, she told me she had asked her if she wanted to see Betsy. Mother nodded yes. I called my brother. He would fly in that night, my husband and I were on the 5pm ferry.

We found a wailing Banshee. We were assured she was not in pain, probably delirious or anxious. A tremor began in her right hand, she threw her head back, got red in the face and howled. My husband was with me when we stopped after coming off the ferry, but brother Rick and I went back alone after I picked him up at the airport. We tried to talk to her and reassure her that we were both there, but she didn’t respond. We are both singers, so we launched into Broadway show tunes: “Whistle a Happy Tune”, “Wouldn’t it Be Loverly”. It was late at night, we were grateful that her roommate was deaf. The rest of skilled nursing was quiet. We said good night.

Mother had always told me that she wanted to be buried in the dress she’d worn to my brother’s wedding. He married on his 35th birthday, after my parents were divorced. He, too, bore Mother-scars. It was the first time my mother saw my father after that bitter event and she wanted to look nice. I took her shopping at a fancy store in Boston and she fell in love with a beautiful, pink silk charmeuse dress. They only had it in blue in her size, but could order it. She had never spent so much on a dress and we wrangled about it in the store. I wanted her to feel good about herself that day too, so I offered to pay for it, if that’s what it would take for her to buy it. She bought it, looked lovely, she and my father each behaved themselves and the wedding went off without a hitch.

Our father had been buried, according to Jewish custom, in a shroud. I thought my religious brother would object to our mother being buried not only in a pink silk dress, but in the dress she’d worn to HIS wedding. But he did not. He explained our father, who had died suddenly 22 years earlier, had left no instructions. Our mother was specific with her wishes. So Friday morning, we went to the funeral home that would handle the body in Boston on its way to Detroit, dropped off the dress and filled in the information necessary for the death certificate.

We visited Mother several times throughout the day. They were now giving her a little Ativan orally and she was calm and seemed to sleep. She still never acknowledged that she knew we were there. The nurse practitioner told us her heart was weakening. When we said goodbye that evening, my brother said, “See you in the morning, Mom”.

I leaned in close to her ear. “It is OK to go now Mom. You have lived a long life and seen many wonderful things. I’ve taken care of everything. I remember everything you taught me. I have your dress ready. I love you.”

She died at 6:15 the next morning and was buried beside my father, her sister and brother-in-law on what would have been her 97th birthday.

 

 

 

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I grew up in rural New England and, altho my dad was a scientist who worked in Boston, I spent my school years in a small public school that embraced equal measures of college prep students and shop kids.

Many of my friends were the sons and daughters of farmers and mechanics. Out of family and farm responsibility, most of them learned how to drive tractors and trucks as part of their impressive list of chores.

My dad taught me how to drive at 11 in a big back meadow where I could start, stall, alternately pop or burn the clutch and narrowly avoid New England stone walls while plowing down hapless rows of victimized weeds.

At 15, I worked Saturdays and after school with my best pal Roger, whose dad owned the Channing Iron Works, a filthy but functional machine shop.

My first car, Serafina, was an elegant 1936 Chrysler Coupe with a rumble seat that my father’s friend was eager to eject from his barn. I couldn’t officially ‘own’ Serafina. I was underage, but she was mine. I named her Serafina because I’d heard somewhere that Serafina meant ‘fiery.’ I thought that was cool. Who knew?

Serafina would have made a great classic car but Roger and I were into hot rods, not sedate sedans. We made other plans for Serafina. One summer day, Roger and I pulled the machine shop truck up to that barn door, hooked a chain to the Chrysler’s rear bumper and extracted this pigeon-shit spattered, straw—covered beauty in disguise, hauling it backwards on flat tires into the gentrified barnyard where it sat like a disheveled hayloft bum, blinking through its filthy windshield after decades of sleep.

But did we do the right thing? Did we restore this sleek, flare-fendered beauty to is former glory, cleaning every piece of its robust body and engine to perfection, scrubbing rust from its tall, proud radiator grill with the classic Coca-Cola and toothbrush treatment? No we did not.

We had other visions, Roger and me. We wanted to build a stock-car racer, the kind that roared around dirt-track bullrings in New Hampshire and Massachusetts under the glare of Saturday night lights. We used to attend these races with some of the older guys around town who thought our enthusiasm for the slam-bang action was admirable. To our ears, the roar of 25 raggedy, chopped-up, roll-barred contraptions sounded like the thunder of the gods. Country boys.

We hauled the Chrysler back to Roger’s machine shop basement and invited the gang to oogle our booty.

“Hey, said Paul,” the eldest son of a local farmer. “Tell you what.” He handed us a greasy handbook of rules and regulations put out by the local hot rod association. “You guys cut this buggy down to spec and rig it for the for the local races and I’ll drive it for you.”

Roger and I were ecstatic. What a glory day! Paul was one of our heroes. One of those older guys who never put us young guys down and would surprise us by dropping by to pick us up to drive over to Kimball’s Ice cream stand for a Friday night hang out in the parking lot. Sometimes — with parents’ permission— Paul and his pals would drive us up to the New Hampshire stock car races.

Paul knew we had the resources to tear down this elegant car: Roger’s dad was the guy with the machine shop — acetylene torches, grinders, welding machines, all spark-throwing monsters that required us to suit up like over-burdened space kids.

Roger and I ripped out the dusty rotten upholstery. Out went the once-seductive seats. The heavy curves of the fenders were enlarged to allow for oversized tires to give the car traction. We installed a crash-seat fabricated from an oil drum, installed a sturdy pipe-framed roll cage for the upendings that inevitably took place on these short dirt tracks, the cars, tumbling, helter-skelter, making the crowds roar like Romans at the Coliseum.

Serafina’s fiery engine, an eight–cylinder, in-line behemoth with pistons as large as coffee cans, was denuded, oiled, polished, and reassembled with the help of Roger’s dad. A special carburetor, a gift from Paul, doubled the monster’s breathing power. We installed heavy pipe crash bars at the front grill and rear of the car. We welded a brace of similar deflectors along each side of our creation, making it impervious to sideswipes by villainous competitors. Our Chrysler coupe was ready for the fray!

Roger and I were full of dreams. Clearly, Serafina was the baddest, fastest stock –car racer this side of Dogpatch. Although too young to race, Roger and I would stand on the victory podium with Paul, the straps of his checked-bedecked crash helmet hanging casually below his square jaw. Trophies too big to lift would gleam in the night light and we would drown in adulation.

On race night, Paul climbed through Serafina’s window (the doors were welded shut) and buckled up. Because the car was a new entry, Serafina had to start from the back of the pack, but that was just a challenge for Paul.

“Don’t sweat it, kiddos,” he winked. “We’ll be cutting through this pack of jalopies like a knife through butter.” Roger and I cheered and back-patted our hero, then stepped away as Serafina, open exhausts roaring, leapt forward down pit road.

After a rolling lap for warm up, the field took the starter’s green flag and floored it into the first turn. The roar of 33 engines with straight pipes (no mufflers), did more than deafen; it compressed our skinny young bodies until our hearts stopped. The smell of ethanol fuel was headier than any acetone we’d ever used to build models. We were in the big time and the race was on.

The front of the field drifted sideways on the dirt, noses toward the apex of the turn, rear tires grabbing for traction. Cars jostled from the impact of metal on metal as they found the line around the first two turns. Hot white lights gleamed down on the multi-colored cars, increasing the sense of speed and heat.

Two or three cars at the front began to pull away from the pack. As they increased their lead, the slower cars began to string out, gaps widening. Cars spun, corrected, and roared back into the carnage. And bringing up the rear, was Paul and Serafina.

Paul worked hard. We could see him out there, sawing through the curves, his arms trying to hold our chopped coupe in the groove. Despite his efforts, Serafina fell further and further behind until the lead cars caught up with her and swept around her as if she was standing still.

One by one, the other cars swerved, bumped, and slid around Serafina until she was alone once again on the track.

Roger and I looked at each other, horrified, embarrassed, confused. Paul never gave up, but after the field passed Paul and Serafina the third time, the flag fell, the winner picked up the checkered flag and circled the track victorious. The rest of the pack threaded their way behind the pits. The race was over, and Serafina had finished dead last… three times over.

We ran over to our car, stunned, sweaty, and exhausted. Paul shut down the engine and clambered out. His face, this kind young man, mirrored our disappointment. Still grimy and stinking of sweat, rubber, exhaust and oil, he placed an arm around each of our shoulders.

“I’m sorry, fellas,” he said. “She gave us our best.”

“But it wasn’t enough,” I said. “ What happened.”

“She’s just too heavy,” Paul said.

“But we cut everything off her,” I said.

“Yes you did. But Chrysler builds those cars to last, not to race. You remember how much metal you had to cut through? Well. The damn thing is built like a Sherman tank, not a race car. Serafina just wouldn’t go where I pointed her. She couldn’t accelerate out of the corners like the other guys, and she sure as hell couldn’t stop.”

Paul pulled of his helmet. He looked sad and worried he had disappointed us. “But you guys did a great job,” he said. “Who knows, with a little more work, maybe we can try again sometime.”

The next Monday morning, Roger and I towed Serafina home from the track, circled her into the back field at the machine shop, and left her there. It was September and time to go back to school.

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