A Part Of Me:

by Karin Aharon

  Mom was hospitalized only in the evening, probably just so that they don’t send us home. June stayed with her at night and Jonathan got the first morning shift.

  Chapter 60

  I pretended to work all morning. I couldn’t focus on anything and canceled every meeting possible. I took the next day off, because I knew Johnny was supposed to arrive and wanted to be at the hospital.

  I came in the afternoon to find mom in the same condition, only in a different room. I was mad that no one told me they had moved her, because when I walked into the previous room and saw an empty bed, I was about to faint. I tried talking to her and she didn’t answer.

  Gabi came in the evening to replace me, and there was still no change. June spent the night with mom again and I came back the next morning to find mom in the exact same condition. No doctor came in to speak with me. They probably didn’t have much to say. The nurses came in every few hours to change her position, and that was that.

  I sat there with a book but read the same sentence over and over again, until I gave up. I sat next to her and spoke to her. “Mom, I’m here and soon Jonathan will come.” I hoped she was listening.

  Jonathan came in the afternoon. “Hey, mom,” he said and kissed her as usual, as if this were yet another Friday lunch and mom would soon whip out the schnitzels and mashed potatoes.

  I couldn’t believe this was our reality, that this was it. The end. We lost after so many years of fighting.

  My phone rang and disrupted my thoughts. An unfamiliar number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, am I speaking with Cathy’s daughter?” someone asked.

  “Yes, this is she.”

  “I’m the committee’s secretary, where your mom works.” ‘Worked’, I wanted to correct her, but kept quiet. “The head of the committee is here to see her. Can you tell me which department you are in?”

  “Yes, we’re in ward H, room 15.” I really didn’t feel like having any visitors, but no one really bothered asking me.

  “Thanks. He’ll be right there. Tell her to feel better soon. Goodbye.” I told her, but it’s not that it had any impact on her.

  “The head of the committee is coming,” I told Jonathan who was sitting with his earphones, deeply concentrated in his terrible music.

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now. Where is mom’s headband? She wouldn’t want people from work seeing her like this.”

  I found her orange headband in the drawer, and tried to somehow hide her bald head. Although some hair sprouted on her head, she preferred using headbands for now. So, I covered as much as I could, and just as I was done, the head of the committee came in with his entourage.

  “Hello, Cathy,” he said to her and perhaps even expected an answer.

  “She’s been unconscious since Saturday noon,” I explained, so that he wouldn’t think she was ignoring him.

  “I assume you’re her daughter? You look very much like her.” He shook my hand with formality.

  “Thank you, nice to meet you. I’m Shirley.”

  “And I’m her son,” Jonathan introduced himself, and the head of the committee shook his hand too. If we weren’t at the hospital, I would have thought he was running an election campaign.

  “We were very sad to hear about your mother,” he said, and seemed sincere. He looked at her, and I was glad I had the chance to put her headband on. “Everyone at the committee values her work and hopes she gets better.”

  “We hope so too, but it doesn’t seem likely,” I said and hoped the doctors were right and mom couldn’t hear us. For a second, she seemed to have opened her eyes, but they immediately closed.

  “In any case, you should know how much we really appreciate her work and were extremely happy when she came back to us. It’s unfortunate that we’re meeting under such terrible circumstances, but it was important for me to come.”

  “Thank you for coming,” I replied, “I’m sure she would have truly appreciated it.” The thought of speaking about mom in the past tense, made me sick to my stomach.

  The head of the committee and his entourage left the room and I approached mom so I could remove her headband. When I touched her head, she opened her eyes for a moment.

  “Mom, can you hear me?” Jonathan saw something was happening and took his earphones off. “Mom?”

  Jonathan stood next to me and we both looked at her and waited. But mom just shut her eyes again. I sat next to her and tried talking to her, but she didn’t reply.

  “Jonathan, can you hear me?” I asked him after a few minutes of silence. He nodded and took off his earphones. “Do you think Tommy will come over?”

  “I think it’s too hard for him.”

  “Could be, but he’ll eventually have to come and see her.” Jonathan went back to his earphones and I stared at the window. Through the blind, I saw the window of another room. I wondered if someone else’s mom was there too. The AC was rattling and I checked mom wasn’t cold. I covered her with another blanket, just to be on the safe side.

  An hour passed (which is forever by hospital standards) and we heard Johnny’s voice at the nurse’s desk, asking for mom’s room number. I ran out to him and dragged him quickly into the room.

  “Catika,” Johnny leaned over her, “how are you Cathy?” Jonathan and I stood behind him.

  Mom opened her eyes and looked at him. A big smile, one we hadn’t seen in months, spread on her face and Johnny kissed her forehead and sat next to her. Jonathan and I stepped outside and started crying with excitement. There was a glimpse of hope. A hope that they might be wrong. Mom was back with us. We stood hugging and crying outside her room, until we calmed down and were able to return to mom.

  “Mom woke up!” I texted Gabi, and he replied, “coming.”

  I was planning to leave the hospital early that evening, so I could spend some time with my family, but mom had woken up that night, so to speak, and I stayed as much as I could. Before I left, I whispered in her ear, “mom, I love you so much.”

  And she answered quietly, with her eyes shut, “me too.”

  Chapter 61

  The days passed by both quickly and sluggishly at the same time. I couldn’t go back to the office. I didn’t want to hear stories about grandmothers spending time with their grandchildren, about family vacations, but mostly, I didn’t want to see anyone. We kept taking different shifts at mom’s as friends and family members came to visit.

  “Where is your mom hospitalized?” dad asked the moment I answered his call, he skipped all niceties people usually say at the beginning of conversations.

  “In ward H, why?”

  “I’m here at the building, I’m coming up.” I was surprised. When I had told him that mom was at the hospital, he didn’t react. He just asked what hospital she was at, and that was it. I didn’t think he would actually come.

  I fixed mom’s headband. I didn’t know whether she was sleeping or unconscious.

  Dad walked in, I kissed him on the cheek. He stood next to me and we both looked at mom.

  “Why is her skin so dry?” he said and pointed at her hands. “Doesn’t she have a moisturizer?”

  I opened the drawer next to her bed, but there was only lip balm, “there’s nothing here.”

  “I’m going to get her some. Do you want anything? Are you hungry?”

  “No, I already ate.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he turned around and left.

  I sat with mom and whispered to her, “dad was here and he’s going to get you moisturizer. Weird, right?” but, obviously, she didn’t reply. I gently caressed her. Dad came back after half an hour with a bag full of the most expensive cosmetics he could find at the drugstore.

  “Take this, use it on her hands,” he pulled a hand moisturizer out of the bag, I opened it and gently applied it to her skin. “I got her some perfume,
too,” he kept taking things out of the bag and placed them on her nightstand, which was packed with water bottles and liquid food boxes.

  I squirted some on my finger, and gently rubbed it on her neck. It was a different scent than that one she used, and it felt strange. But I realized dad needed to feel he was doing something for her.

  “That’s better,” he said, “she already looks so much better.”

  “Yes, thank you dad.” I sat back in my chair next to mom and held her hand. Dad kept standing up and leaned against the wall.

  “What did the doctors say?”

  “Nothing. They don’t have much to say.” I didn’t want to tell him we were told these were her last days, since I didn’t want her hearing it. It was hard telling how much she understood of what was going on around her.

  “When is she going home?”

  “I don’t know.” I was quiet for a moment, and then continued, “now that you’re here, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  Dad kept quiet and listened, but still looked at mom and not at me.

  “I’m having a surgery after the holidays.”

  “What surgery?” he turned his eyes to me, half-astonished, half-angry.

  “A preventive mastectomy.” There’s nothing more embarrassing than telling your father you were about to amputate your breasts. It was similar to announcing you were pregnant.

  “What?” He asked, as if it was all Greek to him.

  “A preventive mastectomy, so I don’t get cancer,” I patiently explained, despite my embarrassment.

  “Why would you have cancer?”

  “Because mom passed on the cancer gene to me. This is why she got sick, because of the gene, and I want to prevent it.” Although I had told him several times, that she got sick on account of the gene and not because they left to Australia, he struggled accepting it.

  “But she has ovarian cancer.” Dad looked at mom again.

  “It’s the same gene, dad.” This was also something I had told him several times, but he was probably repressing it.

  He was silent for a while and then said, “as you wish.”

  Chapter 62

  With every day that passed, mom communicated with us less and less, and at some point, she simply stopped waking up. One day, they told us they were sending her home the next day. “There’s nothing else we can do for her,” they said. In other words – she’s holding up a bed, take her home. Julie was with me at the time and I looked at her in despair, but she had nothing to say. She just hugged me tightly and sat next to mom.

  “Where did all these creams come from?” she asked after having updated Gabi that mom was being sent home.

  “Dad bought them for her. He visited a few days ago.” Frankly, I couldn’t remember what day it was. It all felt like one long never-ending day.

  “Expensive,” Julie smelled the perfume, “she really did smell different today.”

  “He asked me to spray it on her, although I don’t really think that was what she needed.” I threw out food leftovers and empty bottles, trying to clean up the room a little.

  “She likes these kind of things,” Julie said and lovingly caressed mom’s face.

  “Yes.” A nurse walked in and I stood up so she could check the IV.

  “Your dad must be taking this hard.” Julie gently held mom’s hand and the nurse left.

  “I guess,” I had no idea what was going on in his mind. He wouldn’t really talk to me.

  “He loved her very much. They truly loved each other.” Julie told me once again what I had already heard plenty of times, from so many different people, yet it still managed to move me.

  I wanted to ask her more questions, but Johnny came and they started speaking in Hungarian. I went downstairs to grab a bite, and then realized I hadn’t eaten all day.

  ***

  The next day, mom returned to a home hospice, and I went back to the office.

  The office was quiet because half of the staff members took time off. At the moment, the silence suited me perfectly. The office that was fully occupied was mine and Anna’s. She hugged me when I walked in and brought me up to speed about everything that had happened that last week. I cried and cried, until we ran out of tissues.

  “Maybe you should be with her?”

  “Her brother is with her today. I’ll go in the evening. In any case, she won’t wake up anymore.”

  “That’s terrible,” Anna said and hugged me again before sitting down.

  I tried my best, but couldn’t work. It was as if my head was elsewhere. The only thing I could do was sit and cry.

  “Maybe you should go home?” Anna cautiously suggested.

  “The kids are home with Natalie, at least here I can cry and rest.” The thought of having to keep them busy at home made me nervous. Being with Ariel was more challenging than writing an appeal for the supreme court. Frankly, I was unable to do either.

  I looked at my schedule for the following week, so I could see what I’d have to cancel. I then noticed; the Foundation symposium was scheduled for Thursday at the Tel Aviv Medical Center. I had registered a long time ago and with everything going on I simply forgot.

  I sent an email to a few clients, letting them know I was taking some time off. They responded with “have fun”, and “enjoy,” and other responses that had nothing to do with what was really going on. I replied “thank you”, because I didn’t want to tell them I was probably going to be sitting Shiva.

  Chapter 63

  On Thursday morning, after spending some time with the children, Natalie came over and I went to visit mom.

  I walked into the apartment and heard a familiar tune playing on a guitar. I quietly approached mom’s room, and peeked inside. Tommy was sitting on a sofa, next to mom, and playing a children’s song. He looked at her and didn’t even notice I was there. I was contemplating whether I should join them, but decided to let them have some time alone. June was sitting in her room and waved at me.

  I stepped into the living room and looked at the photos on the packed book shelves. A picture of mom and Gabi on a Ski vacation, dressed in thick colorful snow suits and smiling at each other. Another picture of Gabi and mom scuba-diving in Eilat. Another one, which I had taken a long time ago, of them hugging and smiling on their lawn in Maccabim on Jonathan’s birthday party.

  “When did you arrive?” Tommy asked and startled me.

  “Not long ago,” I hugged him and he simply leaned his head against me. We stood there for a few seconds, quietly hugging, “what are your plans?”

  “I’m going back to Dan’s place and then off to work.”

  “Ok, sweetie, we’ll talk later.” I closed the door behind him and went to mom’s room.

  I was exhausted after not having slept in several nights, so after I kissed mom I simply collapsed on the sofa, next to her hospital bed.

  I was awoken by the phone. An unfamiliar number again. I thought perhaps it was mom’s office. They would call me or Gabi every now and then to ask about mom.

  “Good morning,” I replied politely, so I don’t accidently embarrass mom.

  “Shirley?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Grace. Lisa gave me your number. She told me you were planning on having Dr. Katzman operate on you. He operated on me too. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away.” The whole surgery business had recently been put aside, but this was an important conversation.

  “Thank you for calling.” I tried thinking if I had any questions for her, but couldn’t think of anything, “but I would actually love calling you back some other time, because my mom isn’t doing too well. I can’t seem to think of anything, but I’m sure I’ll have questions.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry to hear it. I’ve been through it with my mom.”

  “Ovarian cancer?”

 
; “No, breast cancer. It wasn’t pretty. How is she now?” Grace asked with sincere concern.

  “She’s unconscious. In home hospice.” I looked at mom, as if to confirm that was indeed the truth.

  “That’s sad.” Grace fell silent, but ‘sad’ was perfectly accurate.

  “I’ll call you soon, thank you,” I said after a few moments of silence.

  “Of course, with pleasure, call me anytime.”

  At that moment, I was glad I had found someone who understood me, who knew what it was like losing a mother. Someone who knew what it was like being a carrier and having the surgery. I decided I would go to the conference. It seemed like the right place for me to be.

  I texted Michael I was going out that evening, he replied that he would come home on time.

  I still wanted to spend some time with the kids. I took my things and approached mom. June was there and I knew Gabi was on his way. I wanted to have a moment with her, before he arrived.

  I shut the door and stood beside her. I held her hand, it was yellow and thin. Mom was still gorgeous. Her skin was still tight and nearly wrinkle-free. If it weren’t for her heavy and slow breathing, you could have thought she was simply sleeping.

  “Mom, I’m going,” I said like I always did, “I want to spend some time with the kids. They keep asking about you and say hi. I want you to know that you can let go, you don’t need to fight anymore. I love you so much…” I was choked up and couldn’t speak. I stood next to her a few more moments, and then kissed her and left.

  When I stepped outside, I called Jonathan. “When are you coming to visit mom?”

  “Tomorrow, I think. Maybe the day after tomorrow,” he said with a sleepy tone. Why did he always sound so tired?

  “The day after tomorrow will be too late. You might still make it tomorrow. Try, OK?” I walked slowly towards the parking lot, because I had forgotten where I had parked.

  “That bad?”

  “Yes, she looks really bad.” I found my car, but the thought of getting in with that terrible heat, made me linger outside.