A passionate reverence for her Creator sustained the fire burning within. She would repeatedly implore, “Ven kimt shoin Moshiach? (When is Moshiach coming already?)” And whenever she was asked what she was up to doing, she would unequivocally reply “teshuvah!”
For as long as she breathed, we ensured her upkeep and involvement in all aspects of Yiddishkeit, per her custom in her healthy years. At what would end up being her final Pesach seder here on earth, a chorus of “Leshana habaah b’Yerushalayim!” rang out just as she kissed the mezuzah (a habit that somehow dodged Alzheimer’s merciless pink slip) as she made her way out of the dining room, headed for bed. Abruptly she twirled about and contributed her own solo rendition in heartfelt and enthusiastic tone.
“How many children do you have?
Yingelach? Meidelach…? Married?” Ample brachos, that my daughter encounter her zivug soon, would follow.
Her indomitable spirit revealed itself most ardently on a memorable Yom Kippur eve. To enable us to go to shul, we had hired a sitter, one who could interact with my mother-in-law in her native Hungarian. My mother-in-law had no awareness of the day of week, let alone a holiday, unless and until she was told. Upon “discovering” that it was erev Shabbos or Yom Tov, she’d anxiously and graciously acquiesce to our guidance in anticipation of its arrival.
In her heyday, her adeptness extended to sewing her own clothes. One outfit of her modest wardrobe, a conservatively styled off-white dress made years before, was specifically reserved for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the Pesach sedarim. Her son did his utmost not to deviate from the traditions he knew she would have wanted to maintain, and thus my mother-in-law was attired in her Yom Tov finery on this particular Yom Kippur eve. The sitter had explicit orders for her bedtime, yet we arrived home to find my mother-in-law still up and dressed way past such hour – the flustered non-Jewish sitter standing by.
Though my mother-in-law had no inkling as to the significance of the night (she would forget from one moment to the next), the dress she was wearing had caused a stir in her consciousness – she knew it had to be a special time and had vehemently insisted on waiting until we returned, to validate her conviction. She had perceived that the sitter was not “versed” in our ways and could therefore not be trusted.
God’s compassion toward the woman who had performed incredible acts of chesed in her lifetime was especially discernible in her final hours. The beginning of the end came without warning on a Monday evening, as she sat in her usual place at the dinner table. Her physical energy and mental faculties, having gradually waned over time, were, in the course of a split second, utterly depleted. At once, she was in need of total support – to sit, to stand, to walk. The following day she stayed in bed: a first. She ate minimally and hardly communicated. We dared not give voice to our morbid thoughts.
A new baby boy had made his debut in our family. The bris was to take place on Friday, and the role of sandek was offered to my husband. Yet who but Hashem knew what the morrow would bring, as a moment-by-precarious-moment drama unfolded in our midst. That a life hung literally in the balance we disclosed to no one.
