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April 3, 2009
Sorrow and joy on Passover
The death of a mother and the birth of twins mark the holiday.
LAUREN KRAMER
It was supposed to be the best of times. Midway through a pregnancy, I was carrying twins, two acrobatic little girls who were competing for space in my swollen belly. My finally engaged little sister was putting the finishing touches on her wedding preparations, and we thought we had Passover covered, with an invitation out for the first night and the second night at my mom's.
Then, G-d threw us a curve ball; the worst we'd ever encountered. My mother's mysterious abdominal pains were diagnosed as cancer, an insidious ovarian variety that was to be merciless in its onslaught. Shirley Kramer was 56 at the time and I looked around frantically, desperate for hope.
Medical websites said the chances of recovery for women under 60 were good, so I figured we'd caught it just in time. "I'm going to fight this," Mom told us bravely, just days before being admitted to hospital for surgery.
We all thought she'd be home for Pesach. And she'd promised to be there when my girls were born. After all, I needed her so badly.
The surgery came and left more problems in its wake. Nothing went smoothly, a pattern that was to characterize first her hospital stay, and then her time in the cancer centre. As one complication followed another, the only constant was her inability to eat. Helplessly, we watched her shrink away before us, her eyes clouded with fear and doubt, and her mind fogged by a barrage of drugs that ultimately failed to remedy her.
I have a clear memory of sitting with her during Passover, and feeling shocked when she asked to nibble on a non-pesadicke cookie. "Mom, it's Pesach!" I said indignantly. She had been the champion of the Jewish holidays, a frequent shul-goer and the family member who worked the hardest to bring the spirit of each festival home.
"Who cares," she retorted weakly.
I could see her faith was dwindling, and I was determined to keep the Jewish family flame alive. I held the second seder at home, trying hard to commemorate this special holiday in the chaos and desperation of a family in upheaval. It was a laborious effort to create a pretense of normalcy, to celebrate a time when G-d came to the Jews' assistance. Now, it seemed, our cries were falling on deaf ears. My mom's health was deteriorating and, as the days progressed, her bed seemed to get larger, and she, smaller. Still, we believed the doctors when they said she'd be home soon. It was just a matter of time, they reassured us.
Thirty-eight weeks into my pregnancy, on a Friday morning, I was admitted to hospital for a Caesarian section. My two little angels popped out with no complaint and, as I lay recuperating just an hour's drive from my beloved mother's hospital bed, I called her.
"They're magnificent," I told her. "I've named them Amy and Sarah – Sarah, after you." I could hear from her voice how weak she was, but I had no idea that this would be our last dialogue. "I'm so honored you did that for me," she said.
I was supposed to go home on Sunday, but that day, as the twins began a series of mysterious breathing problems, they were whisked from my arms into the neonatal intensive care unit. Just hours later, we got a call to say my mom had taken a turn for the worse.
"The end is near," I was warned by a family relative. "It could be any time now."
I was shocked. "How is this possible?" I asked. They said she was coming home. They promised she'd be home. Someone, tell me this is a big mistake.
It was no mistake.
Leaving the twins in the ICU, I raced to her hospital, to find her unconscious and being wheeled towards the palliative care unit. As they disconnected her food and water supply, leaving her only with a solution to numb any pain, it was clear that survival was not considered an option in this wing of the hospital.
My mom clung to life, unconscious, for five days in that bedroom, waiting for my girls to be released from their hospital and brought to her bedside. Six days after their birth, they were ready to make the pilgrimage, and so the first drive of their life took them from one hospital to another. We placed the tiny babies on her chest and cried at the cruelty of life, that could end so suddenly, yet bring such beauty in the same moment.
I hobbled around the house the next day, trying to keep busy by helping to prepare a Shabbos dinner in my home. It was early evening when the rest of the family arrived after a long day at my mom's bedside, and we'd just recited the Kiddush when the call came.
"Come now."
We left the table, the challah untouched, the candles burning and the dinner cooling in the kitchen. By the time we arrived, she was gone.
I don't suppose anybody ever gets over losing their mom, and the scars from watching her suffer still haunt me. I look for her everywhere I go, seeing her shape in strangers at the grocery store and searching for her scent, her touch and her memory when I'm in her home.
That Pesach, now five years ago, marked a turning point in my life. No longer the child, I had to brandish the flame of Jewish continuity and work hard to keep it alight. Through the pain of my mom's ordeal, I clung to my Jewishness as an anchor, an inexplicable force that, on some level, provided comfort and a reason to forge ahead.
As Pesach approaches, I remember this time acutely, this Passover from Hell that has made every Passover after it very much easier.
Lauren Kramer is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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