Category Archives: Photos

20a. Taking a Break: A Day in Brooklyn: At the Brooklyn Museum

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This has nothing to do with my mother and everything to do with my mother. Exhaustion. Day in and day out I have been on the phone, for months, taking care of my mother from afar and observing by feel the decline of her health. And mine. So I was under orders from everyone around me and the people who take care of my mom, to go out and enjoy myself. Easier said than done. I tried. But wherever I go I carry a large trunk filled with memories from the past, concerns for the future, and angst for the … Continue reading →

Part 19: Garbage, Ice Cream, and Pneumonia

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This photo was used for an ID button from the Brooklyn Army Base during the war Today is supposed to be my day off, a break, a little serenity. I’ll be going, hopefully to Brooklyn, where my parents grew up, to the Brooklyn Museum, my favorite Peruvian restaurant and to a show. My head and heart are floating somewhere. I go through motions and as I do life gnaws at me. The phone rang. That was it. The Hospice nurse called to say my mother has pneumonia and the crisis team was going back in to do round the clock … Continue reading →

Part 18b: The Aura

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                       The weirdness of ocular migraine aura Since September, around the time my mother began to become unstable, I have been having episodes of ocular migraine aura. Almost all of the “episodes” have been in my home and most seem to have a light trigger. It has been triggered as well by computer screens and cell phone screens. The “aura” usually begins to present as a small blind spot that grows into a black C-shape with gold zig-zags. it starts out tiny and then expands, so that perception is that something from afar is approaching. The C-shape can face … Continue reading →

Part 18a: Hummingbird Heart

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Honeymoon in the “country” It is Wednesday evening and I am looking back at the day. It was one of the few where my time spent on the phone did not consume the usual entire day. There were pockets of time spent conferring with aides and nurses. The time that was calm was almost frightening. Too good to be true. Until the phone rang just as I was sitting down to dinner. Just after I took the first sip of wine I have had in over a month. The aide sounded frantic. She had left to go shopping and the … Continue reading →

Part 17: Weight For Me

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When I was young I recall my mother saying she was “four feet eleven and three quarters.” She was usually one hundred pounds, if she got sick maybe she’d drop down to ninety-five. She was eighty-three pounds in the last rehab center. Today she was weighed by a Hospice nurse: the scale was brought to the kitchen where the floor is hard and level and my mother weighed in at seventy-five pounds. When the nurse told me I gasped, but I wasn’t all that surprised. She is barely eating. She is having respiratory issues and is on oxygen. I could … Continue reading →

Part 15: Running Away

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Today has been another day of phone calls and emails. I ate lunch in my bathrobe at 3:30 pm, my usual, some carrot-ginger soup for warm comfort and some gluten-free crackers and hummus for crunch factor which helps me get rid of some anxiety and anger. The communications included the following: a pissed-off call to the management of my mother’s assisted living facility to inform him that she is not getting the services she is entitled to: laundry, housekeeping, garbage removal. Some smart-ass workers gave my aide some lip about what they don’t have to do. My job is to … Continue reading →

Part 14: The Transition

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My mother at ninety-four, July 2012, and as a young woman. Saturday, March 9, 2013 Before I left for an afternoon appointment I was in touch with the aides and their supervisor. My mother was at home with three shifts of round the clock care and  hospice nurses that were on twenty-four hour duty. My mother had more attention than she had ever dreamed of. But –there is always something for me to take care of and this time it was firing the day Hospice nurse. She had a cough. I complained. Loudly. They sent someone else. My day was … Continue reading →

Part 13: Going Home

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Stuyvesant Town as it was being built, ca. 1947; our first home as a family taken from 653 East 14th Street, “terrace” side. photo: Jack Margulies Today, Friday, was the day my mother was supposed to go “home,” to her Florida apartment.  My mother is going to be ninety-five years old and has lived in Florida since the early 1980’s. “Home” in my mind, is our apartment in Stuyvesant Town, in Lower Manhattan, which was surrendered years ago. Our memories are stored in the small closets and bedrooms that are now what is called “luxury” and rent for thousands per … Continue reading →

Part 12: Dungaree Doll

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Mom in her denim: the original Dungaree Doll Excuse me while I put my stream of consciousness together. After I spoke briefly to my mother Thursday morning my day began to sink. I needed comfort and I didn’t know where to get it. I needed to lose myself in something. I decided to cook. I would make meatballs and sauce and the house would smell warm and inviting. As for myself, there is nothing warm and inviting about me. I am no fun to be around. I walk around in a stupor. I am in mourning. I opened cans of … Continue reading →

Part 11: Looking For My Mother

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It’s Thursday. I just called the aide to say good morning. I hadn’t spoken directly to my mother for several days. I had been spending so much time on the phone organizing, setting-up, questioning, taking notes, processing, scanning, sending, emailing, that I either was afraid I would wake her or that it was too late to call. I asked the aide about “how it was going” and her response of “fine, she ate some breakfast” came as a welcome. I asked her to hand the phone to my Mom and after a while of prompting and “it’s your daughter,” my … Continue reading →

Part 10: The Staff of Life

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1980’s At Busch Gardens The plan is this: my mother will be going to a medical appointment this Friday, will return to the rehab center and then be picked up by Vitas Hospice and taken home. I always thought that hospice services were for the dying or for cancer patients but they aren’t necessarily. The goal is to have compassionate treatment and to make one’s quality of life better through comfort. They’ll give her plenty of extra care and attention and we’ll take it one day at a time. The diagnosis: failure to thrive. My mother is eighty-three pounds. There … Continue reading →

Part 9: The Will to Live … Strand by Strand

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July 1971 What is it that promotes the will to live? Is it comfort? Security? Good food? Friends? A stable home? Strong relationships? Connections? Feeling appreciated? Success? having a purpose? Taking care of a person or pet? Or is it intrinsic: something within, a life force? By the same token, what makes us loose the will to live? Is it the opposite of all of the above or is it knowing when to bow out and gracefully exit? I’ve wondered about all of this in regard to myself. How is it going to end? This is a tough topic that … Continue reading →

Part 8: Springing the Joint

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Free as a bird in the Catskill Mountains, ca 1984 Today I spent several hours on the phone. I spoke to the case manager at the rehab and spilled the beans about some of my observations. (Refer to previous post). My decision: my mother should come home, rehabilitation is not an option with a person who gets dizzy upon standing and who is so malnourished she can barely function. I left a message for the admissions office to please check the status of my mother’s request to dis-enroll from Humana and get on straight Medicare. I finally was able to … Continue reading →

Part 7: The Sickening Secrets of Florida Rehabs

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Brooklyn, New York, 1959, visiting Aunt Sarah Here is my mother at age forty-one. She never left the house without make-up. She had her hair done regularly. She took great pride in her appearance. Fifty-four years later she is in a wheelchair in a Rehab Center in Plantation Florida losing hope. Her hair is a mess. Her makeup is tucked away somewhere not even thought of. This is the second rehabilitation center she has been in since her fall in her apartment. The first one was in Margate. My mother complained bitterly that she was being neglected, that she had … Continue reading →

Part 6: The Disconnect

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ORegon-3-9833 ca. 1949 Last night I had a sick feeling in my gut. You might call it panic, anxiety. I had called the rehab center and was told by Cynthia, the aide, that my mother was disinterested in trying soup she would gladly make for her. I tried to speak to my mother but it felt like we were blocked by some unseen wall. It is a transparent black shadow that has been hovering over her. There’s a pulling of the cord: I feel the tension and I am cowering with the knowledge it will likely soon be cut. I … Continue reading →

Part 5: No chicken soup for the soul

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Stuyvesant Town, in front of 653 East 14th Street, ca. 1949 I wish I could race back in time and be in this photo for just a moment, see my mother this radiant and happy and feel what it was like to be that child who was holding on for support. For just one moment. Now, the scene has changed and I am the parent attempting to make my child-mother comfortable and secure. I have to say honestly that I hate this feeling, I don’t want to be in this position, I want to be the child, but that time … Continue reading →

Part 4: The Tangled Web of Health Care

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Mom and Dad 1944 When we are young and just beginning to fly through life, we rarely think about health care, retirement, savings. My parents are children of the Great Depression; they never lived beyond their means and managed to save a dollar here and there. When my mother was working, she had Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and it continued when she retired in Florida. And then there was Medicare. For some reason instead of choosing straight Medicare, she chose an HMO, Humana. Maybe it was cheaper, maybe the coverage was decent at the time, but she was confined to Humana … Continue reading →

Part 3: Angels Among Us

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At the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens ca 1944 On February 7 my mother became dizzy and fell in her apartment; she fractured her right arm, went into the hospital, was sent to rehab, got sick in rehab, went back into the hospital, was sent to another rehab where she remains. Her insurance doesn’t cover more than ten days and now we have to pay fifty dollars a day for the indignity of food that is unappetizing, for occasional neglect, loneliness and discomfort. There is little choice; this is the healthcare system. This is where the broken go with the hope of … Continue reading →

Part 2: Life Can Turn on a Dime

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  In Stuyvesant Town, first apartment, 653 East 14th Street, apartment 5G This tome might one day, possibly one day soon, be a eulogy for a now ninety-four year old woman who will be ninety-five in a couple of weeks. I last saw my mother in August. She wanted to go shopping so we threw her walker in the trunk and set-off to the mall where she wheeled and reeled ahead of me at umpteen miles an hour, all 4′ 9″ of her diminished self; she was a powerhouse. Then in September, she wasn’t. My mother always said, “Life can … Continue reading →

Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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Mom in her glory days [music will autoplay, turn down the volume if need be while your read] A mother’s life, a daughter’s journey This is my mother. This photo was taken sometime in the 1940’s when glamour was still queen and Hollywood still an influence. She was young, unmarried,  and perhaps still working at the Brooklyn Army Base on 58th St. and First Avenue where she met my father. She worked as a secretary for Colonel McCalister and Captain Price and helped figure out the pay of the soldiers. She recalls that a Private earned $19 per month. In … Continue reading →