White Couches
May 5, 2007
Five months. Elsie has been ‘in’ hospice for five months. She has caregivers living with her for five months. She is broken over Pops’ death not even a year now. She is broken over Uncle Art’s death even shorter than Pops’.
May 22, 2006
I walked home from school like any gorgeous day in May. My dog, Marty, was killed by a car on Skokie Boulevard a few days ago. Marty’s death was still prowling my head look for an excuse to vent itself. I taught myself to bottle things up at a young age because my brother always does whatever he can to prick and stab that older brother stereotype that he feels he needs to fulfill.
We took our usual stop at the 7-11 to get Slurpees before parting ways at the rec center. I arrived at my house my spidey sense went off. Something was not right. I dropped my backpack on the floor in front of the coat hangers behind the last chair of the kitchen table. In a voice I had only heard one other time, my father asked me to come and sit down on the couch in the living room.
It used to be a great big snow white couch. It was embroidered with the most glorious flowers and designs that used to mesmerize me, thinking how one person had such talent. It had a nonchalant firmness that would keep you only wanting to stay there sitting perpendicular to the grand window in our living room. Now only just a dirty couch, stained to an eggshell, still covered with dog hair from Marty, and Legos hidden under the cushion, I was asked to take a seat being looked at by the unusually empty cold eyes of Dave and Sheryl Rosenfeld.
My mother breaks a awkward silence that was maybe only twenty-two seconds with “Joe, Popa passed away today.”
May 5, 2007
I don’t really like going to nana’s apartment. It always seems cold, empty, and dark with her cancer out of remission and Popa gone.
August 30, 2006
My mom’s been in Maryland at her brother’s bedside while he takes in his last few days. Pancreatic Cancer a.k.a. death notice. I went to bed thinking nothing of it.
September 1, 2006
I woke up to be called down stairs to the white couch I the living room. Sitting in chronological order, My older brother to my left, younger sister to the right, and me stuck in the middle, right in my father’s view.
Uncle Art died at around 12:05 am, east coast time.
September 12, 2006
It’s been nice to see my mother’s side of the family. My cousins: Nate, Joel, Alyce, Gordon, Leora, and Shira. The nine of us are semi-similar in age. Every time the nine are together, its always laughing and joy. Its always a Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah or Rosh Hashanah, or Passover. Lately, its been this.
Standing on a grassy hill with the ground a little wet from the morning dew, six of the nine stood together while the other three had a front row seat. Not cool front row like Lakers courtside next to Jack Nicholson. This event wasn’t superawesome like when Bruce pulls out ‘Jungleland’ and the crowd goes nuts while you jump singing along because you‘ve been listing to the album ‘Born To Run‘ since age 5. This wasn’t relaxing and calming like listing to Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ while reading your favorite comic. If it were a piece of music it would be Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’. A sad, dark, gloomy tone with an anxious undertone. It is so depressing but you can’t stop listening. You want it to end, but it goes on forever.
May 5, 2007
We arrived at Mission Hills, the apartment complex where Nana lives. The security is so bad that even without a sticker, my dad goes into the pass required line and the gate lifts with a smile and a wave to the guard.
September 12, 2006
We watched silently as the plain wood box, only decorated by a star of David also of wood, was lowered into the opening of our hearts and minds. Nana kept sobbing “A mother should never burry a son.”
Never.
Never.
In the Nicholson seats there was one outlier. My cousin Gordon was the only one without a face red and wet from crying. He sat patient, silent, as if he were watching a movie. It looked surreal.
After the Rabbi was finished, it is considered a mitzvah to put dirt on top of your dead relative in a box. One by one everyone present lined up quiet and single file. First Nana, then Auntie Terrie, then Shira, then Leora, then Gordon, then the rest of us.
After the line had dissolved, Gordon went back, picked up a shovel, and began to whistle as he continued to bury his father. Shira looked over and saw what he was doing as an assault on humanity. She proceeded to scream at him while I watched from afar. She exclaimed, “WHY AREN’T YOU CRYING? IT’S YOUR FATHER’S FUENERAL AND YOU’RE NOT CRYING? HOW RETARDED CAN YOU BE?!!” To this Gordon being the usual man of few words replied, “He’s somewhere better.”
I stopped crying.
May 5, 2007
We walked into Nana’s apartment. We walked down the dark hallway to her bedroom. We approached her bed one by one. First my brother, then me, then my sister. Nana was hyperventilating or something. Her breathing was abnormal. My mom told the caretakers that they could take a break, go out for a walk. She urged them to do so. Eventually they went.
I sat in the den of the apartment. No TV was on. Just sitting thinking about how Nana was in a weird state and how I could still hear her breathing even through the hallway and walls. My mom and dad were still in the room with her.
Suddenly I heard silence. Nothingness. Then the creaking of the hallway floor. Then the voice of my mother calling me to the couch in the living room with my brother and sister.
Nana’s couch was white, too.
