I wrote a piece for International Women’s Day on DIVINE. We always write something to celebrate a day that’s supposed to be about all women, but this time, I just couldn’t. Like many Jewish people around the world, life as I once knew it has changed on October 7th. There has been a rise in Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism – both misunderstood – both tied together and extremely serious. It’s getting to the point where many of us no longer feel safe in Canada. What bothers me the most is this proof about the sexual assault that happened on that day to not just Jewish Israelis, but Arab Israelis as well. Denial reminded me of what it used to be like and frankly what it’s still like.
I shared something in this content that I never talk about, it’s in the past, and that is where it belongs. It visits me every now and again, but it’s not something that I will ever want to talk about. The reason I chose to share it here and on DIVINE, is because largely, the people who read it are strangers. Some people I know will read it, but some won’t. When I think about what the women of October 7th went through and what the hostages are still going through, I had to share the experience to illustrate a point more than anything. You can find the link to read more. https://divine.ca/en/international-womens-day-bring-back-our-girls/
This is another old article that I never got around to publishing – I’m cleaning out my drafts and figured I may as well post it. The photo contains just a few of the 55 clowns that I packed up. I gave several away. I kept one, just becausebut it may end up out of sight.
For years, 131 Beecroft Road was at times my home and at other times my albatross. For so long, it was my home with my sister Michele, but I always felt like a visitor. When Michele died, it became a project – and if you know me, I’m always bored without one. I was feeling very lost when I started packing. It was at the height of the pandemic, so the only place that I could really go was there and like clockwork, for months, one day a week I went there to check the mail, check on the condo and begin the arduous process of packing up 35 years of my sister’s life.
Michele was a keeper of everything. People hold onto memories differently. Michele held on to them dearly, never throwing away a paper or a trinket. Clothes were her weakness, as were shoes, bags, clowns, books and more. She kept thousands of photos, cards, letters, souvenirs. As I went through her photos, so many ended up in the trash. Only a few scenery shots were kept, but every photo that has a person in it will come home with me.
It was hard for Michele to give up keepsakes. I threw away so many things, packed even more for donation, gave some furniture to cousins, other furniture to a woman in need and the rest will be donated to a furniture bank. My sister would be horrified, but they are only things. I don’t need a dresser to remember her or clowns (seriously, why clowns???? They are so creepy). Michele kept a nasty letter or two that my father wrote. They may have found their way into the recycling bin as well. I have no need to remember some of the things that he said. She kept copy after copy of an obituary of someone that she cared about, but who hurt her terribly. I wavered on whether I should keep one copy, knowing how important this person was to Michele. I decided no – they too belong in the trash.
People said that it must be difficult to pack things up. I think it gave me time to deal with Michele’s death with parts of Michele still around. I would look at some clothes that she never had a chance to wear, and think about the times we went shopping together or I would laugh at how much change she kept EVERYWHERE. She saved up more US coins than I’ll be able to spend in a lifetime. She kept address books with people’s names and birthdates carefully written out. I haven’t kept one in years; Michele never stopped preferring a tangible place to keep her people’s digits.
People always think about what they will discover about a person going through their things. I already knew what to expect. Part pack-rat, part sentimentalist – that was Michele. Keep, toss or donate – those were the piles. The donations and toss piles were huge, mountains even. The keep pile is small, mostly books that I’ll give away once I’ve read them and photos – the ever present photos…those I’ll treasure, but the other things….well, they are just things. Especially the clowns.
I wrote this four years ago on the anniversary of my mother’s day and just never posted it. I feel the same way today, six years after she died. Michele was still alive when I wrote this even though she isn’t mentioned. One of the concierges in my building told me if I ever need help, he is always available – I’m kind to him and he said that he loved my mother and how he remembers her every day. Me too.
“No Mummy, please…just…no.” Those were the first words out of my mouth when I realized that my mother was dead. She had slipped away quietly while I lay beside her, resting my head close to hers. I say slipped away, because my mother was just gone, almost in an imperceptible way. She did it quietly which was atypical of her. I used to joke around asking her if there was a switch to turn her off. She’d laugh and say, nope that’s me – a chatterbox. Instead of knowing that she had died, I discovered it, in what was just a few seconds, but seemed to be happening in slow motion. Initially, I was horrified, but then I got a hold of myself knowing that I would have to plan a funeral and get what was now my mother’s shell to where it needed to be. I gave myself a full five minutes to feel sorry for myself, then I attended to what needed to be taken care of.
It’s amazing how quickly you disconnect with someone’s body once their soul has left it. After that, for a week, minus a couple of small moments, I felt like I was walking through gel. Enclosed and protected, but not feeling anything at all. I thought one day, that I would never feel anything again, maybe I was safe from the sadness that seems to hit everyone else. Then, on the Saturday, one week after my mother left, it hit like a wave of agony. I’ve felt that way once before, when my grandmother died, but that was more immediate. This was built up over time.
With a lengthy illness, there are so many ups and downs. There was a day, when I was convinced that as I made my way to the hospital, that this would be the last time that I saw my mother alive. This was September 2017 – 5 months before my mother actually left this world. I remember thinking how different the world would look to me once she was no longer in it. How right I was.
The world is a much colder place without the warmth of my mother’s smile. My world feels smaller and more empty. What my mother lacked in stature, she made up for in personality. She filled a room, whether she was sick in bed and being her brave, bratty self, or when she was at her strongest.
I remember leaving her condo – my cocoon of safety two weeks after she died. The first time I walked back through the door, I went to her bedroom, the room where she spent so much of the last 16 months of her life. It felt empty, hollow without it’s proper owner. I went to my mother’s every week to pick up her mail and check on the place. Each and every time I walked through the door, and she wasn’t on the other side of it, my heart would sink. I would come into her room, touch her glasses, sit on her bed and just sob. To torture myself, just a little more, I may have turned on the CD of her funeral once or twice.
I remember that buzzing feeling in my stomach – the nervous energy that I constantly found rushing through me. The lump in my throat that to this day will never be completely gone. I still have that little ache in my heart. There is an emptiness that will never go away. There is something primal about losing your mother, or in my case, my chosen parent. It’s like walking with a wound that you can’t cover up.
When I visit at the cemetery, I speak to her like she is there. If I have to visit my father, albeit briefly, I always remind her that I’m there to see her, that I’ll be back in just a minute. I look at the stone, standing before me, and think about how I poured all of my love into this one last testament, to this monument standing before me. I always wonder if I picked the right epitaph for her….Heroic, Courageous and Dearly Beloved….but if you knew my mother, it was her to a “t”.
Even though I’m not religious, I spoke with a rabbi in the days leading up to her death. He told me that the mother that I love, the mother that I want back so desperately would never be the way that I wanted her to be, and that I had done everything that I could, and what I had to do was to help her leave the world with respect and dignity. That my own soul was safe even if I believed that I was hastening what was natural.
He called me the week after she died and told me that he heard a lot of eulogies in his time, but he felt that mine was different. That even though he didn’t know my mother well. he felt that after he heard me that he knew her. That it struck the right balance of sadness and solemnity and humour. That was my mother though – she was a combination of humour when it was needed and seriousness when that’s what the situation was called for. He also said she would be everywhere and nowhere when I wondered where she was.
Sometimes, when I speak about my mother, I move people to tears. Not intentionally, and it’s usually someone who already knew her. For people that look at me strangely for still grieving, I tell them that if you knew her, you would be sad too. Grief never leaves you and she was pretty fabulous. As long as I can keep things moving forward, and not lose myself in it, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. In some ways, it has become a comfort to me. It means that the love that I felt for my mother isn’t lost forever. I always say, I had most of my life with my mother and only two years without her.
Thanks to my mother’s wisdom, I am able to carry on without her two years after she died. I often wonder if she knew that I held her in the same high regard that she held her own beloved father. I think she did. I hope that she did. That is the highest compliment that I can pay the most remarkable woman.
Jill Of Some Trades 