A Class Act
© Iris Waichler
A cloud of cigarette smoke stood stationary as my mother held court at our kitchen table. It hung in the air surrounding the overhead hanging light. The smoke cloud was ever present with her three packs a day habit smoking Virginia Slims. Our home was in a suburb of Chicago called Skokie. It was 1966 and I was twelve years old. Even at that young age my siblings and I knew there was something dangerous about smoking. Back then she would send me to buy her cartons of cigarettes. It was legal. Complying made me an uncomfortable and unwilling accomplice. It was unspoken but understood that there was no more discussion about her smoking. My dissent was simply not an option.
Our friends would gather in our 1960’s kitchen with our brown colored appliances and wallpaper with its flower theme. The dial phone hung on the wall. Our friends came to share their problems with my mother. She was their Ann Landers, a famous and revered newspaper advice columnist, who solved the nation’s problems. People wrote to her with every kind of problem and she would extend pearls of wisdom for forty seven years. People would debate her recommendations but she had the final word.
My mother would listen intently sipping her coffee. She offered solace and sound advice our friends eagerly internalized. I would stand back observing and listening. It filled me with pride that my friends trusted her rather than their parents with their life secrets. I confess to also feeling some resentment and jealousy that I had to share her with them. She was only supposed to be available to me as I confronted pre-teen and teenage challenges like dating and friendship betrayals.
My mother was fastidious about her appearance. She would stay up until one or two in the morning cleaning, filing, and polishing her nails. They were over an inch long. She alternated the polish with bright shades of red. Her cuticles and nails were meticulously manicured done with beauty shop quality and perfection. The smell of nail polish and nail polish remover was at times overwhelming. It surely had toxic qualities we could not begin to understand or imagine back then.
I smile whenever I remember the much-coveted back massages she would judiciously extend at special moments with her magical nails. I was a sickly child and had frequent painful earaches . Those massages produced soothing contentment and somehow dulled the sharp and frequent pain emanating from my ears. It relaxed me like a purring kitten gently being stroked. In looking back I realize that my mother’s presence was an ongoing gift and expectation throughout my life. It brought me a sense of consistency and contentment knowing she was there. I liked being able to anticipate how she would react when I needed her. The boundaries and rules were very well drawn out in our household. For example, if it was dark and we were not home we were in trouble. She would begin screaming out the door shouting our names with a range and volume my father labeled as “piercing.”
Not a hair was our of place because my mom was as religious about her weekly beauty shop appointments as those who to go church every Sunday. On occasion I would go with her and sit quietly as the customers swapped stories with their beauticians and each other. They would read their magazines sitting under massive and loud hair dryers. Their hair was gently placed around hair rollers often with tin foil folded into their hair and around their foreheads. To my pre-teen and teen-aged eyes they looked like space aliens. I knew mom was done with her appointment when the beautician pulled out a large can of Aqua Net hair spray. She unleashed its potent spray circling my mother aiming the spray at her head while my mother tightly closed her eyes. Her false eyelashes would catch the brunt of the hair spray.
My mother could feel confident after these appointments with that volume of hair spray no hair would be displaced while sleeping on a pillow or encountering a major gust of wind. Hair wraps and bobby pins stuck in strategic place in her hair guaranteed it.
Clothing and shoes were very important to my mother. She would shop every day with her closest girlfriends in Old Orchard, our local shopping mall. She also frequented Levine’s, her favorite dress shop. The sales women there knew her tastes so well that they began pulling dresses off the racks as she walked through the door. She immediately headed to the dressing room, exchanging warm conversations with Mr. Levine, the owner of the dress shop.
My father was acutely aware of her love affair with this dress shop and decided to use it to his advantage. On birthdays and anniversaries, he would head to Levine’s. Mr. Levine himself would pick out three dresses for my dad to bring home to my mother. She would pretend to act surprised as he gifted her and then she would try them all on. She would pick out her favorite dress and then return the two dresses she rejected back to the store. This arrangement suited all concerned parties, including Mr. Levine who was guaranteed to make a sale.
My mother was a fierce and loyal friend. She modeled and defined friendship for me.
I adopted her values and beliefs about the importance of having close long term female friends throughout my life. She had her close group of inseparable friends that in today’s world would be called a posse. They would get together or at the very least talk on the telephone every day. These women would support each other through parenting, marriages, and life and health crises. They were each other’s chosen family. I observed them often consulting my mother on how to manage a tricky situation much like our friends at the kitchen table. These wives were the social chairwomen of these couples groups. They arranged outings with their husbands who happily came along. I lovingly referred to these women as “aunts” because I felt the strong love and connection between them and my mother.
My mother and her friends regularly got together to play cards. They called themselves the “gin girls” because the only game they played was gin rummy.They placed a lot of bets but, as far as I could tell from my hiding place, played few card games. Instead they used this sacred time together to talk and gossip. There was enough money exchanged that they did annual cruises with their spouses.
There was little cooking done in our household. In retrospect, I can’t blame my mother. Whenever my mom cooked someone complained about not liking something about the meal. She floated the theory that it was cheaper for us to go out to eat than it was to eat at home. My siblings and I loved eating in restaurants consuming countless hamburgers and fries daily. Frankly, none of us believed her theory with my father perhaps being the most skeptical. He never outwardly expressed his serious doubts to my mom for fear of engaging in a verbal joust with her. She was louder than he was and more entrenched in her beliefs. He knew it would be a losing battle with nothing for him to gain but her frustration. We dined almost daily at a well known Jewish Deli called Sam & Hy’s. It was only a block from our house. We were there so often friends sometimes asked me if my family owned the restaurant. My mother became so close to the waitresses and the hostess that when she was on a break my mother would seat the customers. If my mom’s girlfriends could not join her for lunch she could be seen residing at the back table eating with the waitresses who were on break. She offered them ongoing support, laughs, and counsel on their daily lives, dealing with nasty customers, and dating.
My mother did most of the parenting in our home. I was a sickly child with painful earaches and frequent nosebleeds. I experienced the worst versions of childhood diseases like measles and mumps. My pediatrician made frequent house calls. My mother would hold me in her arms and read to me from the book Little Women, a childhood favorite of mine. She used reading as a way to comfort and distract me. I always felt loved and my parents frequently told my siblings and me that they loved us.
It was a safe and protected world where we were regularly surrounded by family, friends, and neighbors. Family and caregiving were important childhood themes as I reflect on my youth and upbringing. We always had a relative living with us including grandparents, uncles, and cousins. Often it was because they had no place else to go or they were in conflict with other family members.
My mother took care of my grandmother when she was dying of cancer. They fought bitterly. However, my mother was undeterred in her determination to be her caregiver whether she wanted it or not. The importance of family regardless of the nature of your relationship was a value that was instilled in me by both of my parents.
When my mother turned fifty, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was away at college at the time. I made my required weekly Sunday phone calls to catch up with my parents on what was going on in my life and what was happening at home with them. One day I talked about coming home for a visit and my mother said it was not necessary. I immediately sensed that something was wrong and said so. I heard my father over the telephone say, “tell her Beverly.” She reluctantly explained she was going into the hospital for a mastectomy and didn’t want to bother me.
I rushed home to be with her and my father on the day of her surgery. The cancer was in her lymph nodes, so she needed a radical mastectomy. Recovery from that surgery was slow and very painful for her. Yet she did not complain about it. There was removal of tissues under her arm in addition to her breast removal. This was a source of ongoing physical pain and severely limited her ability to move her arm in any direction. She was unable to lift any weight and needed assistance with dressing and bathing because of her limited arm movement. In addition chemotherapy was necessary. She began a brutal treatment regime. There were the well-known symptoms of weight and hair loss, nausea and vomiting, and frequent fatigue. My father and her friends took her for her chemotherapy and doctor visits. I would come home as much as I could to help out. I helplessly watched my mother lose weight and saw the hair she groomed so meticulously disappear. Her physical appearance was so closely tied to her identity. I realized that her attention to how she looked was important to me too. If she looked and felt good than my world felt more normal and stable. That made me feel calmer and it offered me some reassurance she would be all right.
Her paying attention to her physical appearance also was a symbol to me that she was prepared to fight the cancer and not let it overtake her life and by association mine. Outward appearances remained important to my mother. She got a stylish wig and she told me that made her look and feel better. She smiled the first time she put it on. I did too the moment I saw it.
My mother continued to try to maintain her lifestyle regime. She resumed manicuring her nails and using her make up. I imagined that it helped her feel like everything was “normal.” I wanted to talk with my mom about her cancer and her feelings about it. She was reluctant to discuss it with me. I never knew if this was to protect me or if she struggled to talk about it because she didn’t want to think about it or she was in denial about her prognosis. I would never find out. I never knew what if any discussions she had with my father about her illness and fears about her future survival. He didn’t share his feelings with me either even though I asked.
My parents friends relied around both of them to keep up their spirits and manage their day to day challenges like errands, laundry, and cooking. My mother managed to continue her frequent trips to the Jewish Deli and was boosted by the attention and support she received from the employees and owners there.
Mom did volunteer work. She said it was important to help others. She was deeply involved with the Children’s Asthma Research Institute and Hospital. She was the local chapter leader and did fundraising until the cancer curtailed her ability to work for them. When she was on a hiatus from her cancer treatment she gave speeches to other cancer patients.
She told me sharing her experience could help and support other fellow patients. I attended a couple of those meetings and saw firsthand how engaged the participants were. After being cancer free for five years, my mother returned to her doctor for a routine follow up visit. She had felt good and expected it would go smoothly. We were all shocked to learn that her cancer had returned with a vengeance. It had metastasized to her brain.
My mother resumed her cancer treatments. The next few years were painful to watch. She continue to lose weight and became very thin. She had little or not appetite and when she did eat it was difficult for her to keep the food down. My father became her primary caregiver. I offered to help as did my sister but both my parents refused to allow us to assist with her care. They also refused my help them find a professional home health caregiver.
I remember lifting my mother out of bed and feeling her bones. She was very weak. She rarely got dressed because the effort drained her strength. As her health deteriorated she became homebound. Her interest in getting dressed or doing her make up and hair rituals became non-existent. I realized that even though she was alive I was losing the mother I knew more and more each day. The cruelty of losing a loved one to a progressive illness like cancer is you lose them twice. Once as they physically, mentally, and emotionally change and again when they finally die.
For me the most difficult aspect of my mother’s health decline was how the cancer in her brain had altered her personality. She became unfiltered in her contacts with us. She was verbally abusive, often swearing and screaming at my father and me. My father remained her primary caregiver and took the brunt of her abuse even though he attended to all of her physical care needs. I could see how confused and angry he was about it. Sometimes he would talk to me about how hard it was to take care of someone who was so abusive. He expected and wanted her to appreciate his caregiving efforts. I tried to explain that the cancer was the cause of her abrasive nature and she could not control or stop these behaviors. He would not accept my explanation and could not understand why she could not be grateful for his efforts. She had more frequent and intense Grand Mal seizures which were terrifying to witness. I found her on the kitchen floor one morning rolling on the floor and shaking uncontrollably. I tried to cushion her head and protect her from biting down on her tongue. I spoke to her quietly and calmly trying my best to comfort her. I felt helpless, scared, and sad quickly calling 911 to get her to a safer environment in a hospital setting.
The worst impact of her personality change for me was on a day I would never forget. I had a serious health crisis amid my mother’s illness. I needed gall bladder surgery which required weeks to recover. I stopped by the house to check on my mom and dad. I wanted her to know I would be away for a few weeks recuperating with my sister who lived about 35 miles away. My mother listened to what I had to say and calmly told me “You will never be permitted back in this house again. You can only be allowed to visit when your brother and sister come to town.”
I was speechless and devastated by what she said. She told me she believed that “if she wasn’t good enough to take care of me I should just go and not be a part of her life.” She mistakenly believed that choosing to stay with my sister meant she was a terrible mother.
Her rejection at a time when I knew she was nearing death in conjunction with the pain of my own surgery was overwhelming for me. I believed this might be the last time I would see my mom and this was not the way I wanted her to remember me and for me to remember her. I tried to explain but she dismissed me and there was nothing I could say or do to change her mind. I slowly walked out of her bedroom sobbing. I had a new understanding and empathy for my father and how upset and angry he was having often been the frequent recipient of her angry, vitriolic, outbursts
My sister helped me to the front door. It was hard for me to walk post-surgery. My father tearfully assured me that I could come back home when I was feeling better regardless of what my mother had told me. I could see how helpless he felt.
I left my childhood home fearing that I would never see my mother again. Her rejection was the most painful moment of my life at a time when I wanted to be there to help her but could not. In the days after this encounter my mother continued to physically and mentally decline. I did come back home after my recovery from my surgery. Neither one of us spoke about what occurred when I was last there. She just accepted my presence.
I came home to give my father a break and help with my mother. While I was there my mother had another major seizure. She fell to the floor. I ran over and dropped to my knees trying to lift her head to protect it from banging on the tiled floor. I was also trying to make sure she didn’t hit anything as she rolled around on the floor. There was no choice at that moment but to have her rushed to the hospital. The seizure stopped. She didn’t want to go to the hospital. I picked up the phone to call for an ambulance and told her she could choose to go to the hospital with me or by ambulance. She agreed to ride with me rather than be transported by ambulance.
My mother’s health continued to steadily decline. She was extremely thin, fragile, and very weak. My father couldn’t offer her the round-the-clock care she needed. He was physically exhausted and emotionally raw because of my mom’s physical care needs and her persistent anger pointed directly at him.
There was a good hospice in a hospital nearby where I worked. I knew the doctors well and understood she would get quality care there for her remaining days however many there might be.
My father had decided that I should make all of the decisions about my mother’s treatment and healthcare. He trusted my judgement and my many years of experience as a medical social worker. My mother had never designated my father to be her healthcare proxy. Nobody imagined she would be this sick at such a young age and she had never discussed her wishes when she was healthy. Now it was too late because we couldn’t trust her judgement and cognitive abilities because of her brain cancer.
I really struggled with assuming this decisive role for my mother but felt my father had carried enough of a burden doing all of the physical care my mother needed over the years. At times it felt overwhelming and I confess unfair. But I didn’t want to increase the hardship my father was dealing with so I agreed to take it on. My sister lived locally and had helped out with supporting my dad and caring for my mother. My brother was living in San Francisco and my other sister was living in New York. Both worked full time and had young kids and couldn’t be available locally on a regular basis. This role reversal was very painful for me. I just sensed that my mother would prefer to be at home based on no solid evidence but I had no way of knowing for sure. I ultimately believed she would get the best 24 hour care with the skills and compassion of a hospital hospice team. I was second guessing myself and racked with guilt and ambivalence about this choice. I reflected on all the years she took such good care of me. I wanted to honor her wishes and repay her.
My dad and sister and I were at the hospital often. My mother’s condition continued to decline. She was not very communicative and often slept. She was on medications and morphine to help keep her remain comfortable and manage her pain. My mom was in and out of consciousness at times.
One morning when I was at the hospital the doctor came in and told me that my mother was near death. He told me “She probably only has a couple of hours left.” I ran to find a telephone and called my brother and sister. They both told me they would jump on a plane immediately and get to the hospital as quickly as possible. My younger sister and dad and I were at my mother’s bedside. I told my mother my other siblings were on their way to see her.
There is a term doctors and grief and death and dying specialists use. It is called “terminal lucidity.” It describes at times when people are near death they sometimes have more energy and become more alert and lucid. Even people who have been unconscious can appear to be thinking clearly.
I witnessed that miracle that morning. My mother returned to me as she lay there
dying. She opened her eyes and recognized me. She told me how much she loved me.
She was calm and deliberate in her words as she spoke to my father, my sister, and me. She expressed her love for us. I had not doubt that she knew she was near death although none of us wanted to say those words out loud. My mother even smiled and seemed at peace. I would periodically remind her my brother and sister were on their way to see her fearing that she would die before they arrived.
As a medical social worker I have been with many patients and their family members when a loved one dies. I have come to believe that for reasons I can’t explain, sometimes people appear to have some control over the exact moment of the their death. I have seen family members be at the bedside of a dying loved one all day and in the moment when they leave to get a cup of coffee the patient dies. It is almost as if the patient believes it is too hard for a loved one to be with them in the room at the instant they die.
My mother’s doctor underestimated her determination to live and her strong and loving connection to our family. Later that night my brother and sister arrived at the hospital. My mother was alert when they were at her bedside. She took time with each of them to individually express her love and to say her goodbyes. There was no doubt in any of our minds that she knew we were all with her. We gathered together around her bed and held each other as she closed her eyes and breathed deeply for one final time. I was so grateful that she returned to us before She died. It was her final gift to us and moments I will always cherish.
About the Author
Iris Waichler is a 12 time award winning author of 3 non-fiction books. Her work blends her professional expertise of 40 years as a medical social worker with her personal experiences. Her most recent book, Role Reversal How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents, won 8 major book awards. She has authored many articles on healthcare and mental health topics. She has contributed to blogs on infertility, aging, and caregiving. She has appeared in the New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and Next Avenue. She was a regular contributor at choosingtherapy.com
