Time

Saturday afternoon, January 18. I enter the care home, pull up a chair, and embrace my mother. She is unaware that time has passed since my last visit in late November. This is a gift, and I accept it.

My mother is ninety-six. She has vascular dementia. She’s forgotten much of her past, but I reside in memory.

I was out of town over the holiday break, so we kept in touch over FaceTime. My mother appreciates these conversations. She brushes her short hair — to this day, she’s a natural brunette — applies her signature red lipstick, and readies herself in front of the iPad.

On the screen, she becomes an altered person. Her smile is gentle, her eyes bright. She is open and kind. Complimentary. My mother is unfamiliar in this guise.

I am unnerved, but also grateful. For most of my life, she’s not been tender.

I look forward to our FaceTime calls, even if I do most of the talking. I relate news, recount humorous anecdotes, and relish her laugh.

I feel beloved. That, too, is a gift I accept.

Sunday, January 19. I receive an email. There’s an outbreak of pneumonia in the care home. My mother is sick.

I call the front desk and learn that she is isolated in her bedroom, with round-the-clock attendants. They suspect she has pneumonia, but can’t be certain.

They have drawn blood and are awaiting the test results.

I telephone that evening. The caregiver hands the phone to my mother. Her voice is shaky, and she is confused. I am worried.

Monday, January 20. My middle sister — who holds the power of attorney — calls before 9 a.m.

It was not a good night. My mother took a turn for the worse. Her breathing is laboured and she’s being transferred to hospital.

My sister’s leaving for the hospital herself. She’s already contacted my youngest sister, who will meet her there. Will I come?

I have a doctor’s appointment that morning and will come afterwards.

I arrive before noon. My mother is in the emergency ward. She is dazed but aware that her three daughters are by her side.

I can’t bear to see my mother affixed to a monitor and struggling to breathe. Over the past three years, even in decline, she’s remained fiercely independent, in spirit if not in body.

There’s a stiff chair against the antiseptic wall. I take a seat and contain my distress. My sisters hover near my mother. They punctuate my silence with intermittent moaning.

We have a fraught kinship.

My youngest sister and I are estranged. She severed our relationship years ago. Of the three of us, she is most bound to my mother.

My middle sister and I have an on-again, off-again connection. These days, she is distant. Of the three of us, she is most responsible for my mother.

I am the eldest. Of the three of us, I am most careful of my mother.

Today my sisters are amiable. Another gift I accept.

I stay for several hours, then take my leave. I ask my middle sister to text me with news and thank her when she agrees.

Tuesday, January 21. She texts me in the morning. She’ll be at the hospital all day. She’s distraught, she adds. “I know,” I write. I share her terrible sadness.

By afternoon, my mother has been transferred to a private room. I make my way there and find her looking much worse than yesterday. In bed, she appears slight and frail. She is not awake and seems close to death. Her lips parted, her mouth agape. I turn away in shock.

Just three days ago she was well.

I am uneasy around my sisters. I feel exposed, unaccustomed to being near them, proximate in a space both intimate and institutional. I know and fear their ire and hope to avoid conflict.

My middle sister — defiant, erratic, artistic — is childless.

My youngest sister — proud, forceful, and efficient — has a son and a daughter. Her daughter may be close in age to my own but is unfamiliar, our lives never having intersected. When she arrives and joins in the lamentation, I feel fully excluded from the family around me.

Toward evening, the palliative care doctor shows up to review my mother’s prognosis. He addresses all three of us, but my middle sister takes charge. She decides to keep our mother on oxygen. Why, I ponder, but hold back.

My sister can be explosive, especially when restive. As a child, she was the target of my father’s violent rage, which she has since restyled as her own.

My husband arrives soon after the doctor departs. We’ve been married for decades. He’s my mother’s first son-in-law and loves her. He glances at the figure in the bed and nearly breaks down.

He converses with my sisters, eases tension, as he’s done in the past.

My husband and I leave the hospital together but drive home separately. In the car, I pray for my mother’s release.

Wednesday, January 22. It’s been taxing to watch my mother weaken and unsettling to be in the company of my sisters. I decide to return to the hospital in late afternoon, accompanied by my husband. I need his strength. My daughter meets us after work.

Eventually my sisters quit.

The three of us linger at my mother’s side. I am temporarily free of siblings, without fear of strife or judgment.

The relief I feel is intense.

Over the years, my sisters tried to break the bond between me and my mother. They failed.

Thursday, January 23. My son flies in from Montreal. “She won’t be cognizant,” I caution him, but he longs to see his grandmother. He craves a proper parting.

It’s late in the day when he turns up at the hospital. He is downcast but not startled at the sight of his grandmother. He’s a doctor who treats many elderly patients.

My mother hasn’t spoken or stirred since Monday. My son approaches the bed. “Bubbie,” he speaks into her ear. Immediately, her eyelids flicker. She’s recognized his voice. He takes her hand and continues.

He questions, jokes, and my mother’s eyes open. He’s reached her. He’s brought her back.

My son is relieved. “You see,” he utters, “she isn’t gone yet. I was right to come.”

“You were,” I reply.

My sisters’ disdain for me extends to my son. They are certain there is no fidelity between him and my mother. But they witness his effect on his dying grandmother and cannot deny their mutual attachment.

After dark, I text my middle sister. I tread ever so carefully. “Do you think it might be time to stop the oxygen? It’s been days of watching her draw closer to death.”

Her response surprises me. “Yes,” she affirms, “tomorrow.”

My sister is the decision maker, and I am her subject. Tonight she and I are in rare alignment.

Friday, January 24. At my sister’s direction, the oxygen is removed first thing in the morning.

I take a seat farthest from my mother’s bed. She is sinking, no longer my parent. It pains me to see her in this state of decay. I find it agonizing.

My sisters think I am harsh. “Come close,” they say.

But they are so present. They dominate the space around my mother, stroking her forehead and hands. They are two keening women. I am my mother’s daughter, too, I remind myself.

Still, I am dejected. There is no place for me here. My sisters have claimed every inch of the room for themselves. How long will this last?

It’s been a trying week. I’m exhausted. Driving home, I envisage three sisters supporting one another as their mother lies fading in hospital.

I give in to fantasy.

Saturday, January 25. We visit as a family. My husband, my son and daughter, and I. The hospital corridors are eerily hushed.

My sisters and their partners are in my mother’s room. My youngest sister’s children are there, too. The group forms a unit around the bed.

When we enter, the circle is rent.

We acknowledge one another under great strain. My sisters are stony. Their spouses feign friendliness.

We feel like interlopers, intruders on this scene of devotees attending the dying.

Outside the room, three men chat.

Inside, three sisters clash. We enclose our mother, her moribund body.

My children are bereft. They are losing their grandmother and regret not knowing their cousins. “I understand,” I say. The cost is incalculable.

At last, we bid everyone goodbye and walk slowly toward the elevator.

Sunday, January 26. I don’t go to the hospital. I need a break.

Monday, January 27. I receive a telephone call just before 8 a.m. “Your mother has died,” the overnight attendant tells me. She delivers this message with grace.

“She’s gone,” I cry out to my husband from the bedroom.

Instantly, I feel remorse. I should have visited yesterday. But the feeling dissipates quickly. I had been with her when she was well, when she was still my mother.

My sister calls. She’s sobbing. “I’ll meet you at the hospital,” I promise.

My husband comes along. “You’re not going by yourself,” he insists. He knows what awaits.

My mother’s body lies fully covered. My sisters lift the sheet. They want to see her face. I do not. I will remember her moving visage.

The funeral parlour attendants are delayed. It’s hours before they appear to collect the body. When they do, they hand the memorial candle to me as the eldest daughter. I accept it and am overcome with grief.

My middle sister wants the candle. “I’m keeping it,” I declare. This is my solitary assertion since my mother fell ill.

My mother’s body is wheeled out of the room and into the hallway. She now lies under a blanket adorned with a Star of David. Over the blanket, I place my hands on hers. They are cold. I am conscious that this is the last time I will touch my mother.

I step aside. She is taken away. My sisters wail.

The body will be transported to Quebec for interment next to my father. My mother lived nearly all her life in Montreal. She spent her final three years in Toronto to be close to her daughters.

Tuesday, January 28. My husband, my daughter, and I fly to Montreal.

We three sisters check into the hotel nearest the funeral home. That afternoon, we have a telephone meeting with the rabbi who will conduct the service. He asks if we would like him to eulogize our mother. I feel emboldened to take the lead and respond, “Yes, I would.”

He did not know her, so he solicits our memories. He poses questions — some more intrusive than others. Was she the type of mother you could approach with your problems? Was she forgiving? Was she charitable? What sort of marriage did your parents have? She lived solo for thirty years after the death of your father. How did she manage?

We talk candidly about our mother. But as we recall the joys and woes of our common past, my sisters seem more like strangers to me than like siblings. Years of discord divide us.

The rabbi is struck by our dissonant views of our mother and notes the unease that marks our exchange. My despair deepens.

That night, my son introduces us to his favourite restaurant in the city, and we savour a meal as a family.

Wednesday, January 29. The funeral is scheduled for noon. It’s a frigid day and snow is expected, but I dress appropriately in leggings and fur. My memories of Montreal in the dead of winter are rekindled.

Two limousines pull up to the hotel entrance at eleven. My sisters and their families are ushered into the first car. The four of us enter the second. 

At the funeral parlour, we are brought to a private antechamber, where family members and friends have already assembled. My mother’s raised coffin is positioned at one end of the wide room. I sit at the opposite end on a sofa, alongside my husband and children.

I greet relatives and receive their condolences. One attendee wonders who I am. “The eldest daughter,” I answer. I should have taken this query as a warning.

I glimpse my elderly uncle, my mother’s sole surviving sibling. His distaste for me is long-standing, but I steel myself and say hello. He barely notices me. I should have heeded this snub, as well.

My sisters are aloof, but I am soothed by the gathering of people.

My daughter approaches my middle sister to proffer solace. “I’m really sorry about Bubbie,” she says. “Are you?” she receives in turn, the two words serving as cudgel.

She once was a favoured niece. But today — despite their joint calling as hairstylists — there is no trace of my sister’s past affection.

We are led into the chapel, where we sit apart from my sisters. At the podium, my son commemorates his grandmother. He speaks lovingly of a woman who delighted in her first grandchild. My middle sister heckles him from her seat in the front row. Her insistent assault on my children tears at me.

I am growing numb.

Some people follow us in private vehicles to the cemetery. The snowdrifts hamper our progress toward my father’s headstone, where a grave has been dug.

Prayers are said as I stand in solemn thought. Beside me are my husband and children. My mother is lowered into the ground next to my father. As per custom, I shovel earth onto her coffin.

I shiver and sigh in anguish and shame, deploring the demise of a mother who did so little to unite her daughters.

Then the mourners exit the cemetery in procession. I am now a mourner.

The burial marks the return of my mother to the city that held her life. The finality hits me hard.

Wednesday afternoon, January 29. We sit shiva in Montreal West, at the home of my aunt, the widow of my father’s only sibling. In life, my aunt and my mother were companions. I, too, feel warmly toward my aunt and thank her for generously opening her door to family and friends. Her genial smile is a tonic.

We shed boots and coats, then congregate in the dining room for a late lunch. My hunger surprises me.

With my blessing, my children depart to spend time together. My husband and I retreat to an upstairs bedroom. We need quiet and rest.

We descend in time for a light supper. My sisters and uncle dominate the conversation.

Wednesday evening, January 29. The rabbi is scheduled to attend the shiva at seven-thirty to lead the evening prayers. I admire him, an attentive man without pretension. His comments at the funeral had brought my mother to life.

I am looking forward to seeing him this evening, to participating in the prayer service.

My husband and I sit on the couch, tucked tightly into a corner.

My middle sister glares and suddenly directs me to take one of the low chairs designated for mourners. “Give your seat to my friends,” she hisses. “You’re so disrespectful.”

I divert my gaze to face my husband. She darkens further.

Over three minutes, insults pile up, forming a chorus of public torment. “She’s always been heartless,” my youngest sister proclaims, as if to an audience. “You’re a disgrace to your mother’s memory,” my uncle spits out.

My middle sister is seized by a long-held loathing, now furiously unleashed. “Leave. Leave. Leave,” she chants, her wild, venomous roar ordering me out of the living room and out of the family.

I sit transfixed. I recognize the performance, this time directed at me alone.

I am finally frozen.

Then, abrupt silence. No one says a word. No one intervenes.

This afternoon, surrounded by family, I stood graveside. Tonight, cut off and newly forsaken, I turn inward. I long to say the Mourner’s Kaddish for my mother. And when the rabbi arrives ten minutes later, with his words of comfort, I do just that.

I rise with the others and softly intone, “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’meih raba.”

I seek to absolve my mother. I seek to renounce my sisters. I seek faith in myself. I seek meaning in cataclysmic loss.