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Book Excerpt from Walking Mom Home

Walking Mom Home: Sharing the Blessings of this Life's Final Journey By Miriam Millhauser Castle Jewish author, healer & counselor Miriam Millhauser Castle's moving account of caring for her dying mother: how she transformed pain & loss into spiritual growth & meaning. Buy Walking Mom Home at a special online price at www.targum.com

Chapter Five

In these first few weeks since the diagnosis, I had taken on the challenge, but with the treatment option still at least in potential. Now that avenue was closed. We would be walking straight to death’s door by whatever route Hashem decided to take us. It required enormous faith, which my mother seemed to have naturally. For my part, while my faith was strong, I was also wrestling with fear. I felt it in my body. I was afraid of all the things that might happen physically, all the possible emergencies with which we might be confronted and that I might not be able to handle. And I was afraid of her dying, of being permanently separated from this woman from whose body I had emerged and with whom I had been bound for a lifetime.

The mother-daughter bond by definition is strong. In Holocaust families, which mine was, it tends to be even stronger. My father’s early death bound us closer again. And my sister’s death some years later deepened the connection even more. We had been through a lot together. Our relationship, while not always easy, was strong and committed. We had always been an integral part of each other’s lives, a significant factor in each other’s equations even as we lived very separate and independent lives. And now that was about to end. She was preparing to leave this world. My job for the moment was to help her go. And then I would need to go on.

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I lay in the bed beside hers that night, feeling deeply the turn in the road we had just taken.We were no longer digesting the diagnosis, taking tests, or exploring treatment options; we were getting ready for death. I had decided to sleep in the other bed in her room so I would always be by her side if anything happened or she needed anything in the night. I had made that decision the moment the doctor told her she had only a short time to live. I didn’t want her to be alone with that reality. I wanted to be with her, to give her whatever I could, to do whatever she needed. She had embarked on a journey and I wanted her to feel me firmly by her side. Our roles had reversed. I was now the one taking care of her, tending to her needs, providing support and comfort. We had come full circle. The torch was about to be passed. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to take it.

I listened to the sound of her breath as she slept. She was still alive, still in the world with me. We could still talk and laugh. We could still share memories of my father, my sister, and all sorts of things that had happened in our family over the years.We held these people and events in our hearts. By talking about them we continued to give them reality in a more tangible way than one person alone could. Who would I reminisce with when she was gone? There wasn’t anyone else left alive who had these memories. I would be holding them alone. What if I forgot?Would I be able to hold onto a sense of my past without her, or would it fade away with time? I felt like I was not only about to lose her, but also my one remaining connection with my father and sister. Between us we kept them alive in some way. When she died, they would die for me all over again. The loss that was about to occur felt so enormous. I wondered if my vessel was strong enough to hold all the pain.

As I lay there anticipating what was to come, I realized the futility of my thoughts. There was no way I was going to be able to deal with the totality of this situation all at once. I couldn’t come to grips with the loss while she was still here. That was too much to ask of myself. I had to stay in the moment, to appreciate every second I still had with her. There would be time later, when it was reality, to face the loss. I reminded myself of Yaakov Avinu and his inability to come to terms with the death of Yosef, for the simple reason that Yosef was not dead. He had been separated from his father but he was still alive. Yaakov, of course, didn’t know this. He thought his son had died. But his soul, unlike his mind, could not be deceived. And so all his efforts to grieve amounted to naught. He remained inconsolable. I took that as a lesson for myself. I wasn’t going to be able to get a head start on the grieving process. As it says, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: ...a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Koheles 3:1,4). Now was still the time to laugh and dance, even in the face of the heartache. The weeping and mourning would have to wait.

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