Category Archives: The Sandwich Generation

Grandma, Mom and me

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So I am not only becoming my mother, I am becoming my grandmother.

You may remember seeing old Jewish ladies like her. They had heavy accents and would offer you a “gless of tea in a kup” (because in the “old country” tea was served in glasses, but “vee know that here, in Amerrrica, dahlink, vee poot tea in a kup”).

They carried heavy shopping bags full of things. In fact, those shopping bags were so ubiquitous that they were called “Jewish luggage”. Which gets me to my point. This morning, I couldn’t seem to find any of my fancy shmancy bags in which to shove some of the daily detritus of my life. I spied a small Dean & Deluca shopping bag (note to self: remind family that this is not a eatery for recessionary times). So in went my blackberries (yes more than one), gym clothes, bills I need to pay, etc. Off I went to my fancy shmancy job at my fancy shmancy office with my shtetl style bag.

Some things must just be in our genes. From generation to generation. . . .

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Losing my mother — 6.5 years later

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Dear Mom:

Tomorrow is your grandson’s 7th birthday.  You died one day shy of his being six months old.  That means today is 6 and 1/2 years since you died.  I can’t believe it. There is no “moving on” after your death; there is only “moving with” your memory and wishing you were here. Next to the computer is a picture of you holding him after his bris and I am sitting with you on your left. The person on your right (unseen in the photo) said something tremendously stupid because I can see it in your eyes. But I know that look — you were measuring your response to an inane statement. In fact, I have that same look on my face in the picture. Genes are amazing things, except you would have responded with something perfectly diplomatic but to the point. I would have responded like Larry King did when he interviewed Jean Harris (who killed the Scarsdale diet doctor), “so, you’re a murderer”.

You live in me and as I age I look more and more like you. This comforts me. But I need for your grandson to know you or know about you, so he can appreciate the remarkable person who was his grandmother.

I tell him about you all the time.  I use those Yiddish phrases that you used with us when you cupped our punims adoringly.  Sometimes, I tell him what Grandma would have said if she were alive because I want him to have a sense of you. So if he does something funny or wonderful or if he needs comforting, I tell him what you would have said to him if you were alive.

A few months ago, we were all in a cab after visiting Dad.  I buckled up and put your grandson on my lap and “strapped him in” with my arms forming the “Grandma grip” (which he knows comes from your legendary strong grip on your children’s arms when crossing streets).  The cab stopped short and everyone else went flying (though, thank G-d, no one was hurt).  Your grandson was safe in the Grandma grip.  That is the image of you I want him to carry with him — the strong, protective love that endures even though you are in Heaven.

I wonder if you would like my blog and would send the link to all of your friends. I wonder if you would comment. You would probably send me direct tweets that said, “be nice” in that slightly chastising way you have. You would worry about Sarah Palin’s daughter being so young to have had a child and tell me to be gentle about that. But, you needn’t worry. I, too, feel that the world is too much upon her. It is her mother who makes me crazy(ier).

Mom, this is not getting easier. And I know you would say to me, “my poor little tsatskele, if I could have this sadness for you, I would.” And that’s the catch: so much more to mourn.

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A Family Pilgrimage

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So, we needed to go to Uncle B’s unveiling one recent Sunday. The previous Thursday, I received a call from cousin B. who wanted a ride because he and his wife want to see Uncle B. I wasn’t sure whether he remembered that Uncle B wasn’t going to be there.

So, on Sunday during the first hour of the trip, my sister and I tried to ascertain whether cousin B was going to freak out that no one told him Uncle B was dead, whether he actually knew but was using shorthand or whether he would start forgetting why he was there. Imagine, my sister’s and my asking questions in that way that people in the Saturday Night Live “Pat” skits tried to ascertain Pat’s gender. (He remembered.) But I digress.

My sister and I spent the day before bracing ourselves for my dad and Cousin B in the same car. Why, you ask? Because Cousin B talks about the intricacies of his bodily functions in such exquisite detail that it is a little disturbing and my father spontaneously breaks into “When Johnny comes marching home again”. No joke. No idea why.

My sister and I devised a counting system: my sister would get a point every time cousin B referred to prune juice as an elixir which he discovered, or how he is sledding downhill on a fast sled on an iced-over mountain. I would get a point every time Dad spontaneously broke into When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again, or The Chicken in the Army. What we need to include next time is cousin B’s constant complaining — I ruined his good knee because there was not enough leg room — and Dad’s need to read every sign on the highway and, for fun, putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble. Total travel time, 3.5 hours each way plus a few hours at Uncle B’s son’s house for the obligatory food orgy.

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Life as a daughter

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Act I:

Ok ok ok ok ok. Dad’s in the ER. My sister-the-doctor is in Holland. I am now Dr. E in a cab going from one side of town to another in rush hour. The recession has made this less harrowing. The upside of the downturn. I spoke to him on his cell and he seems able to talk notwithstanding a thickness sensation in his throat. Sounds like anxiety that his doctor daughter is away and the lawyer daughter is the only progeny available for a consult. Nevertheless, time to get comfy because it’ll be a long night in the ER for an 89 year-old having an anxiety attack and his daughter who is not THE doctor.

Act II:

My dad is not a sympathetic patient. He is impatient. He wants the VIP treatment because my sister is a doctor. The daughter-who-is-the-doctor is half a world away but he is invoking her aura. He is uncomfortable but can certainly breathe without effort. The discomfort is episodic at most. I don’t wish to be uncharitable about this but if he goes to an ER (as opposed to make an emergency appointment with his any one of his various doctors during the day), he has to wait. The good news is that he isn’t sick enough to go to the top of the list.

There are kids with masks (swine flu no doubt), crazy people and really sick and hurt people. Dad looks like he is just in from Florida and got separated from the tour bus.

I have to use the facilities but I am too scared of the gross public bathrooms here.

Act III:

Ok, so the doctors discharged Dad. We have dinner at a gross neighborhood diner. Ok not dinner, “eats”. I’ll let this pass (like kidney stone).

I suggested (in that way I have of being less than politic) that he see Jeff, his internist (a lovely man who is my sister’s colleague and has known Dad for over 20 years) tomorrow. He mentioned that he thought of that earlier but decided to go to the ER. I then suggested (in THAT way) that maybe (in the future, G-d forbid) he should think to call the doctor and have him meet him in the ER. I say this because Dad had time to go to the periodontist in between gasping episodes. Ok ok ok ok ok. So I suggested that tomorrow Dad call and get a walk-in appointment with Jeff tomorrow and Jeff will walk him over to a specialist (there all share offices in those hospital doctor’s office suites). Also he stopped taking some blood pressure pills (rightfully so, because they were making him dizzy) but he didn’t tell THAT doctor that he had stopped. Ok.

So I took him home and we had a lovely chat about Obama and the gross things in his (Dad’s, not Obama’s) fridge. His former colleague called to see how he was and suggested that Dad call and get an emergency appointment with the internist tomorrow who will walk him over to a specialist. Where did we hear that before???? But DR. COLLEAGUE is more persuasive than DR. DAUGHTER-who-is-a-lawyer. Hey, I may only be a lawyer but Dr. COLLEAGUE knows SQUAT about Dad’s condition.

Dad was feeling fine and so I am on my way home. He didn’t feel like getting into his jammies, so he will call me before he goes to bed. I hope he doesn’t stay up too late because I am exhausted.

Oh and in response to his asking if I was in a meeting when he tried to reach me, I said that I was glad he called me and that I would drop anything if he were in trouble. To which he responded, “well I had to call because you wouldn’t have called me tonight, so how would you know anything had happened?” Shoot me.

Epilogue: the next day

I lost a night’s sleep thinking I left my father alone, but he sounded good last night when he phoned and he sounded great this morning. I woke up in the night choking on my saliva in some sympathetic response to his condition.

Dad went to the doctor and he had xrays and it might be a reflux-related spasm (I had also mentioned that the yesterday, which he dismissed out of hand because I am the wrong daughter to have these ideas). He will have a swallowing test but he is in good spirits.

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