That's What You Think

By Joyce Bortnick

Thats What You Think chronicles Sara Elliss journey from independence to dependence. Although the story is based on her own mothers dilemmas in aging, beginning when her mother turned eighty-eight years-old, Joyce found the writing to be both joyous and cathartic to fictionalize. The writing helped me to believe that my mother really thought these things that make this book my heartfelt gift to her memory.

For a long time, sadness blocked me from finishing our story, but my mothers dignity and the time I spent with her encouraged me to translate the traumas of aging into a story of love and respect.

Thank you, Mom, for taking me with you in your final hours.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479727599

Joyce Bortnick

Joyce Bortnick writes her first novel, inspired by her own mother’s journey into old age. Joyce grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from the University of Maryland. After college, she moved an hour away, to the suburbs of Washington D.C. She is married, with two children and four grandchildren and divides her time between Florida and Maryland. Using words and arranging them to convey something meaningful has always been important to her. Writing songs, poems, plays, and stories in high school, college and throughout her marriage, fueled her dreams of one day writing a significant story. She is already planning more stories to write.

Book preview

That’s What

You Think

25633.jpg

Joyce Bortnick

Copyright © 2012 by Joyce Bortnick.

Author photo by © Daphney Milian | Dream Life Photography

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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120539

Contents

1926: Baltimore

1999, Seventy-three Years Later: The Estates Nursing Home

1998, Fall: The Apartment

1998, December, Friday

The Next Day, Saturday

Sunday Morning

Sunday Afternoon

Monday: Visiting the Doctor

Monday Afternoon: Visiting The Manor

Sara at Home

Tuesday

A Week Later

1998, the Last Week of December: The Move to The Manor

1999, January: A New Year

1999, January, the Third Week

1999, February 5, Two Weeks Later

1999, February 19

1999, March 2: The Hospital

On The Way to the Hospital

At the Hospital

March 3, 1999, the Next Morning at the Hospital: Mom and Shelia

My Arrival at the Hospital

1999, March 5, Friday

March 5, Saturday

March 6, Sunday

March 7, Monday

March 8, Tuesday

March 9: Wednesday and the Other Hospital Days

March 23, Wednesday: Moving to Rehab and Rehab Days

Later That Night

Days Spent in Rehab

1999, April: Celebrating Passover

The Last Weeks of Rehab

Finding a Nursing Home

1999, May 1: The Nursing Home

1999, May: Mom’s Life at The Estates

Days at The Estates

Amy

Ina

Nursing Home Days

Inner Turmoil

1999, July: The Estates Nursing Home

Summer Days at the Nursing Home

Two Weeks Later

1999, August: The Estates Nursing Home

Hope

1999, September: The Estates Nursing Home

1999, October: Sara Ellis’s Appointment at the John Hopkins Department of Gerontology

The Interim

How to Save Grandma from the Nursing Home

Planning to Move Mom

The Last Days at The Estates: The Engagement

1999, Late October: Moving Day

October 27 and the Following Weeks

1999, November: The Blue Chair

Remembering

1999, December: Death

2000: The New Year

2000, February

Angie’s Outing

2000, March: Turning Ninety

2000, April

Late April

2000, May: Waiting

2000, May: The Shower

The Acceptance

2000, Late May: The Wedding

The Wedding Night

2000, May: Moving to The Montrose Home

2000, Fall: Daily Life in The Montrose Home

2000, December: End of the Year Celebrations

2001, February

2001, March 16: Mom’s Ninety-first Birthday

Late April

2001: Mother’s Day

2001, Summer

2001, November

2001, December

2002, January

2002, Late February

2002, March: Mom’s Ninety-Second Birthday

2002, April

The Olympics

2002, June: Preparations for Lily’s Wedding

2002, August and September

2003, January

2003, March

2003, Summer

2003, September

2004

2004: More Illness and Death

2004, Late Fall

2004: New Year’s

2005: Mom’s Ninety-fifth Birthday

2005, Spring

2005: The Concert

2005, May

2005: The Conference

2005: Lily’s Baby

2005, Fall

2006, March

2006, Spring and Summer

2006, Fall

2007, Winter

2007: Mom’s Ninety-Seventh Birthday

2007, Spring and Summer

2007, Fall

2007, November

2007, December

2007, December 27

2008, January

2008, Late January

2008: February

2008, Late February

2008, March

2008, March 10-15

2008, March 14

2008, March 15

2008, March 16: Sara Ellis’s Ninety-eighth Birthday

The Party

2008, March and the Days after Her Ninety-eighth Birthday

2008: Birth and Death

2008, April 6: The Funeral Home

2008, April 8

2008: Ending Our Journey

2009: The Synagogue Story

Not Goodbye

Dedication

To Ron, my husband of over forty years: You never gave up on me.

You always encouraged me and thought the book was wonderful from

its inception. Thank you for your belief in me and for always

being there for my mom and me.

To Janie: You encouraged me to write, write, write. I heard you.

Acknowledgments

A book doesn’t completely write itself. I am blessed with a wonderful support team who enabled me to be positive and clear in my writing.

To my Florida writing groups: I came to you with a yellow legal pad of notes. I thought they were a book. You taught me what it meant to write a worthwhile story. Pat, I thank you.

To my proofreaders: You must have been so tired reading and rereading my story. Your suggestions helped me to complete my work.

To Dr. Michael Moskowitz and Kathleen Ammalee Rogers: You two are the most positive people I know. Alignment of spine and alignment of spirit – who could ask for a better recipe!

To my goddaughter Amy: I’m so lucky to be your godmother. You’ve been inspiring me since you started reading Harry Potter as a young girl. Your enthusiasm and achievements remind me to harness all the energy and drive I have inside of me.

To my sister Thelma: We truly allowed Mom to live her final years with dignity. Thank you for the pin you gave me after the unveiling. I used it as the inspiration for my book cover. I love you.

To Connie Johnson: Thanks you for the time you spent designing the book cover. You captured my feelings in a cover I am proud to have to represent my book.

To Beverly Walker: You were that special person in my mother’s life.

To the staff at The Smith Kogod Building of The Hebrew Home of Greater Washington DC: I send you a heartfelt thank you.

To RA Soriano, my publishing consultant: Thank you seems inadequate. Your presence in my life for this final segment of my book’s journey is a gift. I know this book goes out into the universe supported by a caring group at Xlibris.

To my children: Thank you for understanding when I worked all those afternoons at the beach. Grandma lives on inside of us and through your children. I love you always.

1926: Baltimore

H er dark-brown curly hair blows in the wind. She stands in the sun, her back to the Chesapeake Bay, while her boyfriend, Martin, sketches her with pastels. At sixteen, the cleft in her chin, the prominent nose, and her sparkling yet intense brown eyes hint of an inner strength she may need to rely on later in life.

1999, Seventy-three

Years Later: The Estates

Nursing Home

S he sits in her wheelchair, her once luxurious dark-brown hair has faded to a dull white that collapses against her head. A light-blue lap blanket covers her legs. Only her brown eyes denote a strength that is still alive. The rosiness of her complexion hints at her former beauty. What is she thinking? Does she know where she is?

I stare through the window, and I remember a different time. I am a girl, running along the bank of the Chesapeake Bay, with the wind blowing in my hair. Martin calls to me, Stop, I want to draw you. Be still so I can capture your loveliness on paper with my chalk. I keep running.

I remember Max, my husband, and the beautiful house on Field Avenue. I remember an office where I worked for twenty-five years, my victory garden, and lunch downtown on Wednesdays. I remember my retirement party when my daughter, Iris, sang, and all the waitresses cried. I have time now to remember it all.

I return to the nursing home hoping to spend a quiet half hour with my mother before driving home. She does not see me standing in the doorway to the common room. Her eyes appear vacant. I observe her from a distance before she looks my way.

Does she recognize me? It’s me, Mom, Iris. What she is thinking? How much longer can she live here without losing her spark, the unique glow that characterizes her as Sara Ellis, a formidable woman who has now lost the control to make her own decisions for the first time in her life?

She looks toward me, and, after a moment’s pause, she lifts her right hand. She sees me. I walk toward her, shrugging away my uncertainty about her present situation.

1998, Fall: The

Apartment

M y mother, Sara Ellis, lived in a third-floor walk-up apartment built in the early 1950s. While the neighborhood and its population were aging, a group of young religious orthodox Jewish couples were moving into the area and joining the older residents. A synagogue was within walking distance, and young children were visible in carriages pushed by mothers, many of whom were pregnant.

Sara Ellis lived next door to one of these religious couples. She had a two-bedroom apartment, a living room, dining room, small eat-in kitchen, and a bathroom adorned with the black-and-white tiles popular in the 1950s. Past issues of The Baltimore Sun newspaper and old Good Housekeeping magazines were scattered all over her flowered cream-colored couch, spilling onto the floor along with her unopened mail. Sara spent most of her time in this living room, where she watched television and napped. On Saturdays, her oldest daughter, Sheila, my sister, who lived less than a mile away, took her to the hairdresser. Afterward, they would have lunch and go food shopping.

Once a day, my mother, Sara, used to trudge down the three flights of stairs to get her mail, holding her cane in one hand and using the other hand to hold onto the banister railing. For the last few months, Harry, her next-door neighbor, brought her the mail because it was getting harder for her to manage the steps. She had twisted her ankle a few months earlier and needed the walker now.

Mrs. Ellis, your mail, Harry called from the screen door.

Thank you, Harry. I’m coming.

She held on to her walker, pushing it forward to the door.

My wife is pregnant again.

This dear disheveled man who had no major source of income is telling me they are going to bring a fifth child into the world!

Mazel tov, Harry. Give your wife my good wishes.

Oy vey, she muttered to herself as she slammed the door and hobbled to the couch, exhausted from the effort of walking. How can they afford to bring another child into this world?

Two months ago, my mother, Sara Ellis, who was eighty-eight years-old, had been diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes. The medicine was helping her, but sometimes, she forgot to take it. When that happened, she became disoriented, confusing the time of day and forgetting if she had eaten. Sheila and I were aware of Mom’s forgetfulness. We kept calling her and reminding her to eat and take her medicine, but our admonishing came to no avail.

1998, December, Friday

I had been away for two weeks and had spoken to Mom every day. When I returned, I called her.

"Mom, it’s Iris… of course, you know it’s me. How are you? It’s three o’clock… yes, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon. Why do you ask? Are you wearing your watch?

Let’s go out for lunch tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty… oh, I know, Mom, I miss you too. I thought we’d go out and spend the afternoon together. – Yes, yes, I’ll call you in the morning. Bye.

I hung up the telephone wondering why she had asked me about the time. I would see her tomorrow, so I didn’t think about it too much.

The Next Day, Saturday

I t took Mom a long time to open her door. Her steps were more tentative than I remembered. I carried her pocketbook and walker while she gripped the railing, and, with controlled and measured steps, she walked down the three flights of stairs. Each step seemed to be a major obstacle. My heart was racing as I encouraged her progress. I wished that I had someone else with me as I maneuvered her heavy body into my white Ford SUV. Now what was I going to do? How would I get her out of the car and into the restaurant? Maybe this outing wasn’t such a good idea!

As we drove to the restaurant, I kept up a nervous babble. Mom seemed exhausted from the effort it took to walk to the car. She just listened as I talked, for the most part, about nothing. I parked at the rear door to the restaurant and put my emergency lights on. I put her walker by the passenger door in the parking lot, and, after struggling to release her seatbelt, I put my arm around her waist, and I assisted her out of the car and helped her to hold on to her walker.

Hold on, Mom.

When had she gotten so weak? As she leaned into my arms, I noticed her ankles were swollen. How would she walk?

Just hold on, and we’ll get there together, one step at a time.

My heart was breaking.

Just put one foot forward, okay? Now the other.

How could she even manage this outing?

See, we’re almost there.

We were shown to our table, and after seating Mom, I ran back to move my car into a parking place. Walking back into the restaurant, I could not stop the questions that raced through my mind. Hadn’t Sheila seen this deterioration? What had happened to Mom in the last two weeks when I was away? Why hadn’t Shelia called the doctor?

I’ll have a corned beef sandwich on rye, Sara Ellis told the waitress, and hot tea.

I was sitting there in the Sunrise Delicatessen, where Mom and I had sat together at least twenty times over the last few years, but today, my eyes were wide open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Her face looked the same, but something about her had changed. The last time I had seen her, she could walk down those stairs alone and with more ease. Her ankles had been trim.

Mom, what have you been doing?

Maybe she’d give me a clue.

"You know, Iris. I watch my stories, read the paper, and talk on the phone. Shelia calls me a couple of times a day. I talk to my girlfriend. I take a nap and then I eat. I like to watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Then I wait for the news and go to bed."

Sheila says that sometimes you sleep on the couch all night.

So? What difference does it make?

Do you remember to take your diabetes medicine?

I guess so.

Mom was not a pill taker.

Small talk, I was making small talk while the words invaded my brain: my mother cannot live alone.

Pills, shmills. I don’t like to take pills. All right already. Enough! I know I have to take my diabetes medicine. I’ll just have to try harder to remember.

Our lunches arrived. I don’t remember what I ate, but my mother ate her entire corned beef sandwich. If my questions had annoyed her, her face remained unreadable and her demeanor unruffled.

Delicious! If only it wasn’t so hard for me to walk, I’d eat out every day. I was hungry, but now it’s time to go so Iris will stop questioning me.

Are you ready to go, Mom?

Anytime you say.

I’ll get the car.

I struggled to get Mom into the car. A few minutes later, a waitress, outside on her break, saw me struggling and offered her assistance. Together, we managed to get Mom positioned into the car, and I was able to drive her home.

Getting her into the apartment was another matter. The steps were the obstacles. Twice she teetered backward, threatening to take me backward with her, but I kept my hand firmly on her back. Leaving our purses, her walker, and my coat at the bottom of the steps, I got to the apartment door, unlocked it, and, clutching onto my arm, Mom shuffled into the apartment and collapsed on the couch. I went back downstairs, breathing hard, to retrieve our belongings. Then I settled myself on the chair across from her, struggling to find the right words.

Mom, I said, do you remember when we discussed moving, and you kept refusing? You said you were okay here, and you didn’t have to move.

I studied each of the tiny, almost-invisible lines on her rosy face.

Mom, you’re not okay. You can’t walk these steps anymore. I don’t know how you’ve done it all these years. You’ve become a prisoner here. If the steps take all your energy, they’re not worth walking, so you stay in your apartment all day for two weeks at a time.

My mom continued to stare straight ahead.

I will not answer her. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.

You’re forgetting to take your medicine. I know you’ve been disoriented a few times. I’ve witnessed it myself. Then, of course, you get mixed up about what time to eat and now it’s important to eat at certain times because of your diabetes.

She looked at me from behind her lowered lids.

Iris is right. It has come to this, but I can’t face it. She’ll have to. One day, I walked into the kitchen and forgot why I was there. I didn’t remember to eat at all that day. Another day, I turned on the gas to make some tea and forgot to put the tea kettle on the burner. When I walked back hours later, the burner was still on. I could have suffocated, but I didn’t – yet.

I moved over to the couch and put my arm around Mom’s shoulders.

Oh, Mom, I don’t want to see this happen to you. I’m going to get together with Sheila, and we’ll take you to the doctor to make sure everything is all right. Then we’ll find a nice place for you to live without all these steps. Don’t you agree that it’s time now?

No answer.

Mom, we must discuss this.

I’ll look straight ahead. If I don’t look at Iris, maybe she’ll stop talking, talking, talking.

Mom, we need to talk.

Turning to face me, she said, We’ll see, Iris. I’m tired now, dear.

I knew that tone of voice.

I know you’re tired. That was a long walk up the steps. That’s why we’re having this discussion.

I’m not discussing. You are.

"When did your ankles swell?

She looked down in surprise at her ankles.

Iris, I don’t know.

Are you drinking enough water? I’m going to put a glass of water here on the end table, and I want you to sip on it all evening. Before I leave, don’t you think you’d better go to the bathroom?

I helped her up, and, with slow, measured steps, she made her way to the bathroom. I hated all the questions I had to ask her. Who was this bossy person I’d become? I didn’t like it when she questioned me, and here I was, barking out questions to her. When she opened the bathroom door, I put my hand on her arm to help her walk back to her couch.

Now it’s important that you wear your alert button all the time, Mom. If you feel uneasy or light-headed, I want you to press it.

I was relentless.

Okay, Iris, enough.

I love you. I kissed her forehead. That’s why I’m being so bossy. I just want to make sure you’re okay.

I fixed her alert button so it didn’t slide.

Promise me, Mom, that you’ll keep this button on, otherwise, I can’t leave you.

Mom’s eyes were only half open. She needed to rest. I kissed her on the cheek and used my key to lock the apartment behind me. I’d be back in a day or two to take her to the doctor’s.

Now I can open my eyes. Iris is gone. She knows. Damn. I shouldn’t have gone to lunch with her. She’s too smart. I fooled Sheila for a while, but Iris has been watching me for a few years. She and Richard even rented that apartment on the first floor for me three years ago. I just wasn’t up to the move, so they lost the deposit. I should have listened to them so I wouldn’t have to move now. Nu, what can I do? They’ll make me move this time. I know they will. Thirty years I’ve lived here. How will I ever get this place cleaned up? I’m just not up to it. It’s too hard. My life is here. Everything I have is here in this apartment – my papers, my pictures, my linens, my china, my clothes, and my jewelry . . . it’s too much! I need to sleep now.

Dreaming . . . am I dreaming? I see my old house on Field Avenue, a small house, and perfect for the children and me after Max died. I’m lucky I didn’t have to sell it. I taught myself to type again, in my dining room, so I could get a job. Behind the dining room door, on the doorknob, were rubber bands, lots of them. Everyone always told me to get rid of the rubber bands. Who knew when I might need one? Now I use them by wrapping them around the mail I want to save. Yes, the house on Field Avenue is where I’ll live. It’s perfect, and in the spring, my lilac bush will bloom, and my flags (Iris always likes me to call them irises) will flourish. I can see them now. Yes, I can even smell the lilacs. I feel myself smiling. I’ll just close my eyes now for a little rest.

Sunday Morning

T he ringing telephone jolted me out of my reverie. I had been dreaming of Mom. I kept seeing her face, that stoic look she wears and those lines of determination. She’s a proud woman. She knows she can’t live alone, but she can’t face it. I can’t either. Mom lives in silences I do not know. She’s known them for a while. I thought I was resigned. One day, she’d have a heart attack climbing the stairs. At least it would be her choice.

We were never close until the last few years; still, my love for her was fierce.

As a child, I would run home from school and wait to see her face when she returned from work. She was the one person I could count on to be there, my mom.

I reached over to stop the jarring ring of the phone.

Hello.

My voice crackled. I held the phone away from my ear as my sister Sheila’s loud voice shrieked my name.

Sheila, is that you?

I threw back the covers.

I’m not awake yet. I was dreaming about Mom, about my visit with her yesterday… what? Yes, Sheila, I looked at an assisted living facility yesterday… no, I didn’t plan to… of course you care about Mom too… yes, you check up on her… slow down, Sheila. I’m trying to sit up… what? No, I’m not upset with you… what? Sheila, it’s Mom I’m worried about. She can’t live alone any longer.

Mom had been living in her apartment for thirty-six years. Her beautiful home on Field Avenue had been burglarized, and after that, she had been afraid to return there. All of her dresses had been stolen – nothing else! Bizarre! I kept fearing I’d go to the grocery store or the movies and see some other woman wearing my mother’s dresses. What would I do then? My wedding presents had been in the other bedroom, yet nothing had been taken.

Stoic and proud, but not fearless, Mom had found an apartment and moved a month later. She never lived on Field Avenue after the robbery. Instead, she had stayed with Sheila and Stuart, my brother-in-law, until her apartment was ready. Her grandchildren loved having her live there, but Sara Ellis was proud, and she was still a working woman. She wanted her independence. Now, after thirty-six years in her apartment, I was insistent on taking that independence away from her.

Sheila interrupted my reverie again by shouting my name.

Sorry, Sheila, I’m not fully awake yet. I talked to Stuart on my way home last night since you were at the store. I was distraught after my day with Mom… no, no, no, I wasn’t saying you should have made arrangements. Sheila, this is about Mom.

I let her rattle on for a few minutes longer and then I broke in to relate my experience after I had left Mom yesterday.

"Sheila, when I left her apartment, I stopped by an assisted living facility, The Manor. You know it. It’s the home on Strathmore Road. I want us, you and me, to visit it together later today. Stuart said you were free. If you have time before we meet, maybe you could look at some other homes in the area. The appointment is for three-thirty. Can you meet me there? It’s in Towson. The home had a nice feel to it, small and friendly. The new owners, Phillip and Audrey Gordon, have three other facilities in Maryland.

And would you call Mom’s doctor to get her an appointment this week? We need to assess her health. That would be great. And, Sheila, don’t hang up – how long have her ankles been swollen? . . . no, I’m not blaming you. It’s just that she’s changed so much since I was away. We don’t have a choice any longer. Sheila, she can’t take care of herself now.

When I hung up, I felt we had done the old runaround dance again, but we were meeting, and that was all that mattered.

Sunday Afternoon

H i, Mom. I leaned down to kiss her.

"You’re looking rested