Before we left on this trip, Karyn and I were slowly making our way through the Showtime series, Masters of Sex. Every night here, I’ve been sneaking an episode after the house is still. I brought a tiny set of headphones and am watching in secret on my laptop. It helps me unwind after the long, unfamiliar day. My body is still on California time, so I’m wide awake after the elders turn in, though I find myself yawning at weird hours of the day.
This morning, far too early, I woke to the sound of TV blaring from the kitchen. Esther and Ben had told me they keep the TV on about 15 hours a day, and today, I guess, they were getting back to their regular routine—starting the day with the Today Show, like millions of other Americans. I lay in my tiny bed in the back cubby until I heard Mom stirring from the couch in the next room. I helped her to the bathroom and sponged her off with a washcloth dipped in warm soapy water–what Mom likes to call “a whore’s bath,” and then I handed her her scrubbed pink teeth. We were both relieved the moment they popped back in her mouth and her cheeks filled out again.
Mom was better oriented this morning—she knew where she was and who we were visiting. My cousin Judi took off early this morning on her plane back to the New Jersey winter; cousin Stuart came by for one more visit; he wasn’t leaving for Denver until early afternoon. Esther, Ben, Temme and Stuart and I shared breakfast. I helped Mom choose her outfit, put on a sundress myself, and while Mom’s bagel was toasting, I put on her makeup:
Ben had dialysis today and Esther’s aide, Lucy, was coming over. I figured it was a good time for Mom and I to go out and give them back a day of their usual routine. Judi suggested that Mom and I try the Morikami Japanese Gardens nearby. She and Stuart had gone a couple of days ago, and Judi said they had a wheelchair-accessible path and wheelchairs that could be borrowed in the lobby.
In the mid-morning, Mom and I set out on our adventure:
The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens celebrates a century-old connection between Japan and South Florida. According to the brochure, a group of young Japanese farmers arrived in the northern Boca Raton area and created an agricultural colony they called Yamato, an ancient name for Japan. The colony’s farming endeavors proved unsustainable, and most of the original members of the colony returned to Japan. But in the mid 1970’s, one of the remaining settlers, George Sukeji Morikai, then in his 80s, donated his land to Palm Beach County with the wish for it to become a park in memory of the Yamaato Colony. Thus the Morikami Musuem and Japanese Gardens was born.
Today there are 16 acres of authentic Japanese gardens to wander through—and a mile of them are on a wheelchair accessible track. It sounded perfect.
Lucy offered to drive us over and drop us off, and when we arrived in the lobby, there were four wheelchairs folded up against the wall. Great. We scored. But then the attendant informed us that there was no place to store Mom’s walker. “It’s against the rules,” he told us.
When I explained that we didn’t have a car to stash the walker in, the attendant told me, “Rules are rules,” and so I asked him to get his supervisor. I was ready to pull out my purple Alzheimer’s trump card, tell them we came all the way from California and to make a stink about disability access, but moments later a kind man approached us and offered to stash Mom’s walker in the back of the theatre. A minute later, I was pushing Mom’s borrowed wheelchair through the winding gravel pathway.
It was a perfect day, warm with a breeze. Mom was certain she’d been here before. “Weren’t we here yesterday?” she asked. Mom asks this all the time. When we drive around Santa Cruz, she continually looks at any passerby and says, “It’s so funny. Every time I come here, that person is walking right here. He must have the same route everyday.” “Or, “Those three girls. They’re always right here. I know them. I see them every day.” I find these mind glitches curious, and now, she was convinced we’d toured the Gardens before.
“I liked it so much, I thought we should come by again,” I replied. There was no point in arguing. In Mom’s world, she was a regular here.
As we slowly meandered along the edge of a beautifully landscaped lake, I sat on every available bench. I asked a woman with a yellow “Librarians are novel lovers,” tee-shirt to take our picture. She happily obliged:
“Oh it’s magnificent.” Mom said, “This breeze!”
As we sat on one of the benches, I heard a woodpecker beating out a steady pattern against a nearby tree. I mentioned it to Mom, “Mom, I hear a woodpecker clicking.”
“You hear my teeth clicking?” Mom replied.
“No, Mom, “ I said, louder. “It wasn’t your TEETH. It was a WOODPECKER. “ A family, passing by speaking in rapid-fire French, stared for a moment, then continued on their way.
“Are you sure we haven’t been here before?” Mom asked.
I’d never pushed a manual wheelchair before and making my way through a gravel path and over roots wasn’t easy. I needed to rest often and by the time we came to this waterfall, I’d had enough. I let her enjoy her moment in the sun. Some pleasures never go away.
I suggested to Mom that we go up to the restaurant for lunch and she readily agreed. She had a teriyaki chicken hot bowl and I had mahi mahi with mango salsa. As we waited for our lunch, I pulled out the easy New York Times Crossword Puzzle Book and tried to get Mom to help me finish the puzzle I’d gotten stumped on back on the plane. Mom had done the daily New York Times puzzle for over fifty years and somehow, that part of her brain had not lost its shine. Mom can’t tackle the hard puzzles anymore, but today she knew that 53 Down, “Time waster” was IDLER and that 9 Down, “Gift in Honolulu” was LEI, and that “Out of Reach,” starting with a “B” was BEYOND. In moments, we had the whole puzzle filled in.
On the way out to meet Esther and Lucy, we spied this local resident, a large iguana:
Back at Esther’s house, Mom and I were both tired and fell asleep on separate couches. I woke up after an hour, but Mom slept for three. Esther and Ben I sat in their den and talked.
As we chatted, I was so grateful I had come. I’d never been close to Aunt Esther or Uncle Ben when I was a child. They lived in Queens, New York and we lived at the Jersey shore, a drive of several hours, so we only saw them once every few months. They were conservative Jews with a kosher home; we did the bare rituals of Judaism and nothing more. Their two children, my cousins Donny and Amy were younger than we were. My main memory of Donny was as a bratty kid who chased me around the lower east side of New York, outside our grandparents’ tenement apartment with snot on his finger. We drank real seltzer in Esther and Ben’s basement of their house in Hollis Hills, Queens, and ate snacks out of two refrigerators–always full to bursting. My aunt always served soda, Entenmann’s cake, and lots of sweets that were forbidden in our house–Ring Dings, Yodels, and those big marshmallow puff balls with fake coconut on top. I always remember Aunt Esther being kind to me.
My Uncle’s claim to fame was that he was the accountant for the Beatles, Blood Sweat and Tears, Elton John, and Paul Garfunkel. He and Esther got VIP tickets for concerts and saw all kinds of famous rock and rollers at the Fillmore East and other venues around the world.
I lost touch with their family once I left home at 17; I was rebellious and far out of the family orbit, on my own trajectory of gurus, drugs, and communes. Esther and Ben’s family fell off my radar. But when I published The Courage to Heal in 1988, they reappeared, furious with me. They were horrified that I’d accused my grandfather–Esther and Temme’s father–of sexually abusing me. And that I had the audacity to publish it, and to spread my lies all over national TV. I was no longer invited to weddings or bar mitzvahs. I had been cast out, ever further out than I’d already put myself in my distant elliptical orbit around my family.
We had no contact at all for many years, but I think Esther may have sent me a simple card when Eli was born 21 years ago. The first substantial contact I remember with her was when I had cancer seven years ago. Uncle Ben had survived two cancers and Esther called me now and then to give me some of her salt of the earth, I’ve-been-there advice. I loved her gravelly voice, her New York accent, and her hard-won wisdom. “You go through these things,” she said, “And then you move on. You just have to move on.”
As Mom and I reconciled, I gradually came back into the family fold. I no longer felt the need to rub my relatives’ faces in things they could not believe or accept. Instead, I learned to focus on the things we had in common. I saw Esther and Ben a couple of times when I traveled east for big family gatherings. Over a period of years, as my children grew, I was woven back into the fabric of the family.
Since I moved Mom to California six years ago, Esther and I regularly talk on the phone. We talk about Mom, about Ben’s dialysis and her creeping blindness. We talk about the death of her son, Don, and my cousin Amy. Esther always wanted to hear what Eli and Lizzy were up to and never failed to say hello to Karyn. I liked having Aunt Esther back in my camp.
And now here I was, sitting in their den in Del Ray Beach, with Mom stretched out snoring in the other room. “You know,” I said to both of them, “I’m really glad I came. If I hadn’t brought Mom to see you, I never would have seen either of you again. Not until your funerals.”
I was speaking the truth and we all knew it. Ben, who is generally a man of few words said, “It’s a good thing you did. I have two siblings I’ll never see again.”
I felt love for these two tough survivors. They’d both been raised poor on the lower east side and they’d both been through a lot of hard times–but always together. They’ve known each other for 65 years. Last year they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary–and watching them together now, I believe my Aunt Esther and Uncle Ben have the strongest, happiest, most compatible marriage I’ve ever seen.
We woke Temme for dinner and had our second meal of kosher cold cuts on rye bread. Mom polished off the chopped liver with a gleam of pleasure in her eye. At one point, Temme began her repeating litany. “I like where I live. They feed me and they clean the place. I can’t drive anymore and they take care of everything. The only thing is I don’t have any intimate friends.”
At which point Ben interrupted, “At this stage of life, Temme, we don’t make friends. We lose friends.”
To which Mom replied, “Getting old sucks.”
Ben replied, “Yes, but just consider the alternative. Getting old is no tragedy. I’ve had two cancer surgeries. I’ve been on dialysis for more than seven years. It could have been worse. I could be dead right now.” Be paused, and then continued. “We buried a son. It’s life.” He thought for a moment as he grabbed for another pickle, “You know what real tragedy is? My father’s mother had 13 children and 11 of them lived. Only my father and one uncle got out of Poland. All the rest of them were exterminated. Now that’s a real tragedy.”
I quietly pulled out my i-phone and shot a video as they talked. The conversation moved on to my grandfather’s butcher shop on the lower east side, about how he could have made a lot more money selling meat on the black market during the war, but he was too honest to do that. Ben said that Poppa always left 20 or 30 dollars in the register at night so if he got robbed, the robbers would come away with something and not find it necessary to trash the place.
Every time the conversation wound down, Mom would say, “What else do you remember about Papa?” and Esther would launch into another story about their father. I contributed nothing.
At one point, Mom turned to me and asked, “Did you ever meet my father?”
There were a million ways I could have responded to her question. Twenty-five years ago, I would have felt compelled to tell them what he did to me when he came to tuck me in as a little girl. How he asked to inspect all the girls’ breasts when they hit puberty. How their saintly father was anything but a saint. But I had no need to do that anymore. I had my memories, and they had theirs. I had no need whatsoever to change that. “Yes, Mom,” I finally said. “Of course I knew him. I remember him making schnapps, Mom. He made his own sauerkraut and he made his own whiskey.”
“But he wasn’t an alcoholic,” Mom countered, as if that was the worst thing he possibly could have been.
“I didn’t say he was,” I replied, then started clearing the dishes from the table.
Over our graham cracker dessert, I asked Ben how he got into the rock and roll business, a story I’d never heard before. And lucky for me, Uncle Ben was in the mood to tell it. “I had a job in an accountant’s office, but my boss believed that between January 1st and April 15th, that we had to work all day and all night and weekends and that wasn’t for me. So I answered a small classified ad from a lawyer’s office looking for an accountant. I’d never heard of the Beatles. And the ad didn’t say anything about them. I went to the interview and for a while they couldn’t decide who to hire. I was persistent and I got the job. The rest, they say, is history.”
For the next four decades, Uncle Ben was the accountant to musical superstars. He was the accountant for the Beatles, for Elton John–and Esther and Ben have the gold albums and framed pictures on their walls to prove it. Art Garfunkel came to my cousin Donny’s Bar Mitzvah and Esther told Donny his friends couldn’t bother him or ask him to sing.
Esther and Ben attended the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium with their seven-year-old and their three-year-old. “Even in the VIP section,” Esther told me, “all we could hear was screaming. We couldn’t hear any of the music. And women were throwing their underwear. If people had taken one step forward, we would have been trampled.”
“It was hysteria,” Ben concluded.
The two of them were on a roll and they name-dropped and shared stories of the stars for the next half hour. I loved they way they talked in harmony, interrupting each other in perfect synchronicity. It was as they were one person in two bodies, telling the same story. I learned that Blood Sweat and Tears had named Ben on two of their albums, that Esther and Ben attended Elton John’s first US concert, and Art Garfunkel’s 50th birthday party. “We had a stack of thousands of LPs in the basement. When the kids went to summer camp in the Catskills, we’d tip the counselors some cash and a Beatles’record.”
Esther remembered, “We went to the Fillmore East to see Elton John and they picked us up in a limo. Here I was a girl from the lower east side getting picked up in a limo. It was the ultimate. I felt like the Queen of Sheba.Then when it was time for me to get out of the car, the limo driver opened the door and a guy came up to me and said, ‘Hey lady, want some acid?'”
Temme caught about 20 percent of these stories, every once in a while, piping up with a question or a comment.
Finally, after a lull in the conversation, Ben struggled to rise from his chair, wearing his black sweatpants and his signature light yellow cardigan. “We’ll wax more nostalgias tomorrow,” he said, and headed back to bed.
I helped Mom get settled, and amazingly, even after sleeping much of the day, she went right to sleep. I stayed up watching the last three episodes of Season 1 of Masters of Sex and slept fitfully. “Oh well,” I thought when I woke up this morning, still groggy, to toast Mom a bialy, “There will be plenty of chances to nap today.”
Such extraordinary stories, told in such a strong and loving voice. in this installment of the blog, Laura. I’ve read every one and loved them all. Amazing what you and your Mom have been able to accomplish. Very happy for you and her that you have had this experience.
Thanks Karla. I love that you’ve found the time to read them considering all that you’re dealing with in your life. I’m happy, too, that I came here. It’s gone as well as it possibly could, under the circumstances.
The trajectory of human lives in your family’s stories is so compelling. Thank you for sharing this journey with us, Laura.
Thanks Julie…glad you’re out there reading.
Thank you Laura for these stories and the pictures. Love them. This one put in context your experience with your grandfather. And your uncle and aunt stories with the celebrities are fun!:)
Thanks Krystyna, I’m so glad you’re reading. Now you know a little more of the family history…
Laura,
What a gift to yourself as well as your mother to visit your aunt and uncle. I’m sure you will never forget it or the stories. We always have to listen to the stories, that’s how we find out who we are.
Love it. Thank you.
Thanks Hazel…yes, the stories are priceless.
I woke up this morning thinking about reading your next installment. Thanks, it was beautiful and honest and suspenseful. Potential land mines avoided with the theme “it’s important to move on” with so many aspects of family. Thanks for letting us join you.
Thanks Mel….it’s taken many years of therapy and life to be able to let things go that I would have feel perfectly in my rights to make a stand over. Now I don’t feel the need–and value other things more than the TRUTH. the truth is the truth regardless of whether my family members can acknowledge it or not. I don’t need that from them anymore.
dear Laura,
that was the part that was most intriguing for me: when you were asked if you knew your grandfather… Not having to tell how well you knew him and how he had violated your boundaries – this is such an extremely long path you have been walking.
Being able to be there with your mom, witnessing their stories – and not needing a space for your own story in that setting – this must be a very deep experience for you.
reading how you move into patience and into being compassionate with your mom – it touches me deeply.
Please keep writing…
Sending you warm thoughts,
Michaela
Thanks, Michaela. It has been a lifetime journey. I’m grateful to have made it. (And to still be making it, of course–there’s always the next twist in the road–the next challenge).
Laura, some minutes ago, I remembered again that part of your writing (that you did not even feel the need to speak your truth…). And I heard it as a message from your lifetime’s journey: the pain is getting less.
I was doubting that, and it is good to remember that others have walked this path and can tell about the fact that the pain is getting less – if it has been expressed and shared and witnessed enough…
thank you so much for your honesty in telling the story of your trip and – underneath it – of your lifetime journey.
I am so grateful to be able to read you.
with love,
Michaela
Loved that, Laura. Thanks. I’ve been to the Morikami Japanese Gardens with MY Mom but luckily didn’t have to navigate those stone paths with a wheelchair. You’re a good daughter. And how true …. how our memories are our own and how time softens hard edges. Lovely.
Thanks Cathy. Love that you stood in the same place. Thanks for reading and taking the time to write in. I’m just packing my suitcase to come home now.
I just glide through these stories, lapping up the images and dialogue and wanting more. Temme looks so beautiful, and you’ve captured her so well both in your words and photos. And I love hearing about your aunt and uncle, and Ben’s career with musicians. I smiled reading about the crossword. My mom also did the NY Times puzzle every day for years. It was sad when she could no longer do them but still carried them with her, pencil in hand. Thanks so much for sharing. What a treasure. You’ll carry this trip with you forever.
Thanks, Jennifer. I still want to have a long sit down with you and find out about your last trip with your father–though from your few comments, it did not at all have the success of the trip wrapping up for me now with my mom.
So much wisdom, love and kindness shared in these stories Laura. Loved being able to read your intimate experience in this way.
Thanks, Marie. It’s been a long haul to get here. and it’s been a good week!
Dear Laura,
I am shamelessly using your family’s nostalgic stories to trigger my memories of my family and extended family. I am grateful
you are sharing this trip with us; the similarities are helping me appreciate my past in a whole, new and nourishing way while the differences are so darned entertaining. I’m so happy you are the excellent and generous writer you are..
Use away!
Hi Laura, deep appreciation and respect for your honesty. My father died this past June at 93 and I have my mother here and she is 92. I love your writing and the photos and I am glad for you that you are making this journey.
Thanks Amy…I think those of us in this club with aging parents is very, very large!
Laura Davis, I am LOVING being with you for
Temme, Laura and Karyn’s Excellent Florida Adventure: NO REGRETS TOUR!
Temme glows in the garden. She is a force of nature; as is her daughter.
What is bialy?
Love and Light,
Renee G
A bialy is like a bagel without a hole–it’s baked, but I believe now boiled–but made of the same dough. But someone else reading may have to correct me.
Ok! Thanks!
Bialy was also the nick name of one of the lead characters in The Producers. Lol
What a treasure to be able to record those family stories.
Seeing elderly relatives before having to attend their funerals is also a gift to them and yourself. Several years ago I made a road trip through the South with my sisters we san my grandfather, grandmother and her sisters. I was the last time I would see my grandmother and the others. I was long, arduous trip that we all have come to treasure as a shared memorie.
I love your Mom’s expression “a whore’s bath”. My Mom called them “spit baths”. I like “whore’s bath” better.
I wake up each morning anxious to see the current post of your trip.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
Diana
Thanks, Diana. I’m so glad you made that trip. I’m hoping this blog will inspire others to take that trip NOW–and not put it off. There’s always a better time, but there isn’t really. If you have old folks out there–do it now.
I woke from a dream world of old family story lines and experiences. Not traumatic, but not particularly enjoyable either. I groggily sat down in front of the monitor to escape and found this installment. I am weeping. As I’ve told you, I grew to understand and accept so much by reading “The Courage to Heal,” and now experience a similar feeling as more of your story unfolds. I’ve questioned myself about what it means to be an adult, because my son will sometimes tease me as I act out playing with my grandchildren. Your response to your mom about her dad touched me deeply. There it is. A perfect example of healing, love and yes…of an adult. I bow to your growth, I know it didn’t come easily. You inspire me Laura. Thank you! I LOVE that you are watching Masters of Sex after a day with them all!!!!
Yes, Masters of Sex–and last night Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy. I swear those hours of TV at night have saved me.
Since the two nursing home’s my mother was in during her final ten months only showered residents twice a week, she was offered “bed bath” the other days. “It’s not that bad,” she assured me. “The water’s nice and warm. You start at the top and wash down as far as possible. Then you start again at your feet and wash up as far as possible.” She leans closer to whisper, “and then you wash ‘possible’.” She giggles at her own audacity.
Thank you for sharing this great story. I love the love reflected in it.
So many just right details…I felt myself especially pulled in, well, by lots of it, but the complexity of it–the hardest and the lighter side by side. I love that even though there are those people who can’t deal with the realities or are/were in disbelief, that you are there–all of you–in the stories in your telling of it. With them, there is how one gets through, what one chooses to look beyond or past, but none of that takes the realities, the past, and all the lessons from that away.
I guess I am moved by this person (you) finding a way to manage that situation, find the good in it and in people (regardless of their failings) and put it out into the world and onto the page in a way that does not deny or belittle any of it.
I think also there are the complications around Jewishness and all that is entwined there. I guess from my own Jewish background (but not one of abuse), but there can be this protectiveness and it made me wonder if some of the family resistance to believing was also somehow a false belief that a Jewish person wouldn’t do “something like that”? But what layers and how moving for you to put it all out there. I am glad too for the good and nice and funny interactions with your mom especially, knowing that dementia can be such a difficult disease.
Thanks for going there or going to all the “theres” in your writing!
Thanks, Lee…you’re right. It is incredibly complex. But also in some ways simple. I had to learn to let the elephant in the room be there, without denying anything, and the conflict I used to feel about all of it. It’s not there any more. I don’t need anything from them around it. And what works between us has become bigger and what matters. I don’t mean for it to sound easy–it’s taken decades. But the journey (obviously, for me anyway) has been worth it.
What you say here is apparent in your writing–how amazing to bring that forth and to come to a more simple place in a way after a whole journey and to be able to focus on the present things and relationships. I think I was sort of blown away with someone having got to that place where the “elephant” (no offense to elephants : ) ) can just be in the room without denial and without having to do anything about it. And also you touch on the strangeness (not sure if this is the right word, but…) of certain moments where you know the elephant is there–the question your mom asks you about meeting her father–wow–and you just going on with it.
It seems a certain hard-won maturity and also your writing becomes so rich with the realities of memory and forgetfulness…thanks for your powerful narrative of this journey!
Thanks so much Lee. It’s been a lot of work to get here and this path is not for everyone….but it’s certainly paid off for me personally.