Tag: Mom Page 3 of 7

Saying Goodbyes

On August 22, 2013

Well, today one more door has been closed. Marit Hansson was laid to rest. It was a simple ceremony at Skogskyrkogården (The Woodland Cemetary) on the southern edge of central Stockholm. It’s a very beautiful place, with gentle hills and tree shaded burial plots.

There weren’t many people at the service. When you live to be 92 there aren’t many friends left to see you off. The Swedish präst or pastor was very young, maybe thirty. We got the conventional service – 2 psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, some words about Marit and of course some words about The Lord. The young pastor didn’t know Marit, he didn’t know any of us. He had spoken perhaps once or twice to my husband, Håkan, Marit’s son. So what was he to say? He probably knew that the woman lying in the casket wasn’t a big believer in God or even religion. And he probably assumed that those of us sitting on the hard benches in the chapel weren’t especially religious or serious church goers either. So he just did his job. He seemed kind at least.

As I sat there in the lovely chapel listening to his words, I kept thinking back to my own mother’s funeral just a year and a half ago. Two mothers, two funerals, so close together in time. My mother’s service had a rabbi who didn’t know her either. The rabbi for the congregation she had belonged to had retired many years back already. And since she stopped driving, she was unable to go to services even if she wanted to. The rabbi who did the service for my mother was the one who came with the Hospice care that took care of my mom during her last days. By the time he met her, she couldn’t really respond to anyone, even him, anymore. But he and I had a chance to talk those last days and get to know each other a bit. I was glad and relieved when he said he would be pleased to do the service for my mom.

And it was a good service. Coming so close together, I couldn’t help but to compare them in my mind. Mom had a good send off. We filled the small New Jersey chapel. My mom still had friends young enough to drive the distance to be there. Mom’s baby brother and his wife were there. Their three children, my cousins, came with their families. Even the hospice people came, who I had gotten to know those last weeks. And of course my husband and my son. The rabbi said the words he needed to say, in English and in Hebrew. And he had charisma, he held the stage, he made one feel that he saw you, he was there for you. That what we were doing there in that chilly stone chapel was important. He made me feel welcome, to come up and talk about my mother to the gathering. To bring my uncle up to talk about his sister, to say goodbye to her. And I think that was the big difference between the two services for me. While the Swedish pastor was kind and almost overly polite, he was also so unintrusive, so retiring, so grey, that it was like he wasn’t even there. No charisma. Nothing. Dried up, like dust. And this was a representative for God? Well, he certainly wasn’t going to be able to get me to believe. While on the other hand, Rabbi Bill Krause’s service, though being contemporary, modern and very Reform, made me feel like I was participating in something that was part of a 3000 year old tradition, a rite of passage that was part of life and connected me to my people. It was a good service.

After the paster was finished, we slowly moved out of the chapel into the sunlight. Once outside again, after saying a few words to each other, everyone separated and we drove off to another section of the cemetery to look for the gravesite of Marit’s sister Else. Håkan’s cousin Anne Marie and her husband Tord and their son Fredrik were also looking so we joined them. After locating her gravestone, everyone stood around talking for a bit. I went in search of a stone but all I could find were small pebbles on the walking path so I took a pebble back to where everyone was standing and put it on the top of Else’s and her husband Berth’s gravestone. I explained that when Jews visit a cemetery they leave a small stone to show that they had been there.

There had been 10 of us there at Marit’s service – a minyan. And though it hadn’t been a Jewish service it nevertheless felt good to me that we had at least been able to gather 10 people on a bright sunny day, to say goodbye to Marit.

Real life

By Hilarie

On March 15, 2013

In Family, Life

“Well, I’m back.” That was what Sam Gamgee says at the very end of The Lord of the Rings as he returns home from his great adventure. And now I’m back too, back to my family, in my own home with all my own things around me. Back to real life. Back to being just Hilarie.

During the last week of my stay in NJ over a year ago, as I rode in the car with my husband, I told him how much the residents at Monroe Village whom I had gotten to know, said they enjoyed eating with me and would miss me, how the healthcare staff told me how great it was that I had been there for my mom, how much people from both the States and Sweden told me that they enjoyed reading my blogg. He reaches over and pats me on the head and comments that maybe he should have rented a larger car model so as to accommodate the size of my swelling head. He said it with a smile but I could hear the whooshing sound of the air leaving as my head shrank back down to normal size and I landed 0nce again on solid ground.

This made me think about the “instant celebrity” phenomenon so prevalent in our society today. Somebody sings a song on American Idol and suddenly they are SOMEBODY. Somebody that everyone is talking about, that everyone wants to meet or talk to. Everyone is saying how great they are or how wonderful they sing. I can say that I am beginning to understand how easy it is for them to begin to believe the hype and all the complements until finally they end up thinking, “Wow, aren’t I great?? I truly am SOMBODY!” And diva-ism is just one step away.

Yet still, something remarkable happened in those 4 weeks at Monroe Village. I went there to say good bye to my mother, to be with her as she lay dying – a sad, difficult, grief-filled experience. Yet I didn’t have to go through it alone. The people who had known and liked my mom took me in and gave me their friendship. The people who took care of my mother took care of me too. And I had time – time to sit and think, to use words to shape the experience of being with my mother as she lay dying into something I could understand and take with me.

And now I’m sitting here in a Wayne’s Coffee on Sveavägen, watching people and once again thinking. I was too busy at 40 being a new mom to have a mid life-crises then but now at 60+ I think I’m having a sort of 60 year’s crises instead. What is the meaning of my life? Who am I? Where am I going? I feel like I’ve become a teenager again, asking those questions – but with a lot more of life experience, with a body that is starting to show the effects of a lot of wear and tear, more tired, more cynical and more negative. And some of the questions have changed: what have I accomplished in the past 40 years, what more do I have time to do, what do I really want to do with the time I have left? And while no one really knows what the future holds, the big difference between being 18 and 61 is that there are a lot fewer years left.

So now I find myself with the next 1/4 section of my life staring me right in the face. I go towards it as a relatively new orphan, with my only child standing on the cusp of moving out on his own – to be independent of his parents, with the prospect of unfamiliar coupleness once again, with retirement from my “working” life just around the corner.

So I look at myself and ask , who am I? Am I just like everyone else? Or am I someone special in some exceptional way? What sort of “SOMEBODY” am I in this real life?

The fuschia coat

By Hilarie

On July 8, 2012

In Family, Life

Hi Mom, Did you see me? I was wearing that bright fuschia jacket. You remember – the lightweight down one which you used to wear as a winter coat. I never had a chance to ask you if I could take it back with me to Sweden. You had already left by then, but I figured that you wouldn’t mind my taking it. Its more like a jacket on me and it’s been perfect for the chilly Spring and early Summer days we’ve been having here in Stockholm. I never had a chance to say it, but thanks Mom.

I think about you a lot since those days back in December. Every time I’ve worn that jacket I’ve said a silent Hi Mom. But, mostly, in the evenings, when dinner is done and I haven’t quite decided what to do next, I think of you. I remember how every evening, for the past 4 or 5 years, I would think “Okay, I have to call my mother now”. I admit that it wasn’t always a pleasant thought – it was more like a chore – something I felt I had to do. I always called you, because it was more difficult for you to be able to call me here in Sweden. Since you got sick and had to leave your beloved house in Homestead and moved into Monroe Village, the kind of conversations we would have weren’t really about much of anything anymore – just superficial chatter, both of us trying to be cheerful. Before I would start up Skype I sat for a bit to try to think of cheerful things I could tell you about my life here in Stockholm.

Back when I was still young and living in New York, I called you quite frequently – just to chat or to ask you your opinion, or how to do something or just quite simply as a sounding board for some of my own thoughts. But I wasn’t able to have those kinds of discussions with you much anymore. Mainly I called just to make sure you were still answering the telephone. I also was trying to edit what I talked to you about. I tried to only tell you good things – to cheer you up – so you wouldn’t worry about me. Successes Bevin was having in school, what I was working on at work, the funny things our cat had done and what I was making for dinner. If potatoes were involved in the dinner, I always made sure to tell you. You liked hearing about us eating potatoes. I know you tried not to ask but you always wanted to know if I would be coming to visit and when. I know it saddened you when I had to say that I wouldn’t be able to come visit until later. Sometimes I would hear the regret in your voice that you were no longer able to come to see us anymore but I would say, that’s OK we would come to visit you. Later.

If I wanted to discuss something from the past it seemed like you couldn’t remember what I was referring to or maybe it was just that you didn’t want to remember that long ago. Your days had become a routine of indignities and infirmities and I think you were trying to protect me from hearing about them – to keep me from worrying. And you were always trying to be positive and cheerful too. You would never tell me if you had fallen or hurt yourself. I often found that out much later. I was so glad when you met Marty. The world changed then for you. You had something to look forward to each day and to brighten your life. And when it got really tough the last year, he was always there to be with you. I am so grateful for that. You weren’t so alone.

Its summer now, I’m on vacation and we are at our summer place. A few days ago I was wearing a short-sleeved, navy blue cotton cardigan over my tank top. That was also yours – found in your closet, never worn. I wear it now – its perfect for Swedish summer and I’ll wear the fuschia coat in the winter. That way a part of you is with me all year round.

Lightning flashes and the movies

By Hilarie

On January 10, 2012

In Uncategorized

“How are you doing?” people ask me. “Are you OK?” And in all truth I can answer them, “Yes, I’m OK, I’m doing fine.” I suppose they expect that I should be feeling grief, or great sadness or be suffering a terrible case of mourning after the death of my mother. But I don’t really feel that way. I sort of feel… just…normal. I think it has to do with the fact that for many years now I have lived so far away from her – across an ocean. I maybe only got to see her once a year for about 2 weeks at the most. While we often talked on the phone during that time away, she wasn’t a constant physical presence in my life. I find myself still thinking and acting as though she is still just “over there”. But sometimes I see something or hear something or do something and like a lightning flash through my brain, I think, “oooohh, I have to tell Mom that.” And equally fast, I realize, “Oh, I can’t.” Then comes this deep sadness washing over me momentarily. But soon enough I am once again back to normal until the next time lightning strikes.

I have lived so far away from old friends and family and for such a long time now that I’ve become like one of those old movie projectors. And I have become a repository of old films. I carry around in my head short clips from movies recorded during my life – in Budd Lake, in Brooklyn, in Manhattan, on trips upstate to the Catskills or to Maine or California or back to New Jersey. They replay suddenly against the inside of my skull without warning. I’ve been collecting those clips a long time now – scenes of friends and family I rarely see – frozen in time. A few years ago I met someone who reminded me very much of an old friend in New York. The friend here in Stockholm was in her late 50s but the friend she reminded me of is now in her 70s. If I were to tell the Stockholm friend she reminds me of someone in their 70s she might get insulted. But in truth she reminds me of my friend as she was 20 years ago before I moved away and when the image of her was captured in the movie in my head.

Until I can capture new scenes upon my next visit to the States, I just replay the earlier versions I have stored in my memories. But now, I’m starting to gather a small collection of films that no longer can be updated. My grandmother, my father, and now my mother are among those films. There will be no sequels made of their stories. They remain the same, etched in time and memory – classics. Waiting for me to turn on the projector light and replay them.