One of the top 5 excuses for not making Aliyah is the need to take care of ill and aging parents. While there may be some justified cases where a family may have to delay Aliyah for this reason, in most cases the octogenarian would probably far more enjoy his or her golden years in Israel than in the Far Rockaways or LA. '
Today marks my father’s yahrtzeit. Later in the day we will visit his resting place on the Mount of Olives (which didn’t cost us a shekel since burial is generally free). The view there is spectacular and you don’t have to worry about alligators devouring the body the way you do in Boca Raton where my parents lived before I brought them on Aliyah when Mom developed Alzheimer’s and Dad could no longer help her with his own assorted ailments slowing him down.
So I am posting an abridged version of the first chapter of a novel I wrote based on this family adventure. You may not have noticed, but Book Week in Israel was canceled because of the recent war with Iran, so now that Book Week is continuing, it’s another good reason to post some fine Jewish literature. Enjoy!
Chapter One
It was Aunt Peachy on the phone. She was calling from Florida.
“Joseph,” she said, “I think you had better come down to Boca. Something is happening to your mother.”
Joseph held the kitchen phone to his ear without answering. For a moment, the world seemed to stop.
“Joseph? Do you hear me?” Aunt Peachy asked.
“I hear you, Peach. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t really know. She isn’t herself. She gets angry all of the time. She curses for no reason. Your father says she runs away from the house, and he has to go searching for her. I don’t think he can deal with it alone. He has his own health problems, you know.”
Joseph knew very well. Five months earlier, he had flown from Israel to Florida to visit his aging parents. Dad’s anxieties and Parkinson’s were worsening, and Mom was apparently suffering from what her neurologist called a short-term memory loss.
“You know you have always been Mom’s favorite,” Aunt Peachy said. “I’m sure you can help. Besides your father, you’re her whole life.”
“Thanks, Aunt Peachy,” Joseph said. “I appreciate your calling. I know how much the folks mean to you. I’ll phone Dad right away.”
“Don’t tell your mother I said anything. I don’t want her getting angry at me. You know that beside my cousin Betty, your parents are the only family I have down here.”
“Don’t worry, Peach. I won’t say a word to Mom. How are you feeling yourself?”
“I have no complaints, thank God. I try to keep busy. Nothing seems to help my arthritis, but I’ve gotten used to it. There is a wonderful program of adult education classes not far from my home, and I try to attend twice a week.”
“You’re a fighter, Peach,” Joseph said. “We all love you. I’ll phone you back after speaking with Dad.”
Down the hall from the kitchen, Joseph could see his pregnant wife, Rivka, knitting a kippah in the salon. Upstairs, little Avi and Moshe bounced around on their pogo sticks, transforming the ceiling into a nerve-wracking drum.
“Joseph,” his wife called out. “Who was that on the phone?”
“My Aunt Peachy.”
“Oh? That’s nice. How is she?”
Joseph walked to the living room so he wouldn’t have to shout at his wife. Even after giving birth to five children, she had retained her pretty, youthful appearance. In Joseph’s eyes, her current pregnancy lent her an added charm and attractiveness, even though she had recurring bouts of nausea and all types of aches and pains.
“She says that my Mom has been acting strangely lately. I’m going to call my Dad to see what’s going on.”
Rivka grasped a thread between her teeth and gave him a look, wanting him to elaborate. The skullcap, or kippah, as it was called in Israel, was almost half finished. Hanging on the wall above her was a framed oil painting of golden Jerusalem which they had first purchased on a trip to the Holy Land.
“Apparently, my Mom gets angry for no reason,” Joseph answered. “Hey, that kippah looks nice. Is it for the baby?” he joked.
“I was thinking more of Avi,” Rivka answered. Just then there was another loud banging noise upstairs and cries of murder. With a sigh, Sarah said she would go and see who had started the war.
“Hello, slugger,” Harry Friedman said when he heard his son’s voice on the phone.
“How is everything, Dad,” Joseph asked, as his wild son, Avi, continued to scream out curses from the bathroom upstairs.
“OK,” his father answered. “Pretty much the same. Your mother is working in the garden now. Hold on and I’ll call her.”
“Wait a minute, Dad,” Joseph said. “How has she been feeling? Don’t tell her, but Aunt Peachy called and told me that Mom has been freaking out lately.”
His father didn’t answer right away. “I was afraid to tell you,” he finally admitted. I was hoping it would pass. I know you have your hands full at home.”
“What is it, Dad?” Joseph asked.
“I don’t know. We were supposed to see the neurologist but your mother refused to go. She threatens to divorce me. Whenever she gets angry she runs off. Sometimes she disappears for hours. I can’t keep up with her anymore. Last Thursday, they called me from Wall Mart saying that your mother was there, acting all confused. I had to go get her. She wouldn’t talk to me and locked herself in our bedroom when we got home. I haven’t gone to the hospital to do my volunteer work for two weeks now because I am afraid to leave her alone in the house.”
“You want me to come for a visit?”
“I think maybe you should, son. I know you have your own headaches, but maybe you can persuade your mother to go to the doctor. She listens to you.”
Joseph assured his father that he would come right away. Surprisingly, when he spoke with his mother, she sounded fine, exactly the same as always. She asked about his health, the health of the kids, and how the pregnancy was proceeding. She even remembered that he was waiting to hear about a promotion at work, as the head of the film and multi-media department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. When he told her that he was coming to Florida to visit for a few days, she was thrilled.
“Your father and I will go out shopping right now and buy all the things you like to eat,” she said.
“We will eat out in restaurants,” he heard his father say in the background.
“I hate kosher restaurants,” his mother retorted. “They’re filthy places and the food is awful. I’m still his mother, and I can still feed my son at home. We’ll get paper plates and everything else that we need.”
What battles Joseph had gone through with his parents when he had become religious! Among other things, they hadn’t been happy when he had moved away to Israel and married an Orthodox Jewish girl. Nevertheless, they had paid the rental on their first apartment in Jerusalem to help them get started, and then bought them a home in Shilo after their third child was born. Still, it took years for his mother to get used to the fact that when it came to eating, he was strictly kosher, and that the Sabbath was really Sabbath for him, and that he wore his tzitzit prayer-shawl fringes on the outside of his pants, even though it made him look different from everyone else. Still now, she hated his beard, even though it was neatly trimmed.
“Nu?” his wife, Rivka, inquired when he sat down in the salon, wanting to know what was new.
“My Mom sounds great,” he answered. “But my Dad says that her behavior has been a little off the wall. I told them that I would come for a visit, if you think you can handle the kids.”
“I’ll manage, don’t worry. If your parents need you, they need you. Are you going to call your sister?”
“I suppose I should,” Joseph answered. “If I can reach her.”
His younger sister, Ilene, was forever out of touch. To her brother’s way of thinking, she lived on a different planet. Not only because she lived in L.A. Ilene was married to husband number three. She was a journalist by profession and had made a name for herself by interviewing weird and famous people. It was almost impossible to reach her directly. Either she was traveling to some far off location for an interview, or her phone message tape was always full. To contact her, you had to leave word with her answering service, and if you were lucky, she might call back the next day.
“Oh, darling,” she said when she returned Joseph’s call during the middle of the night. “They only just now told me you called. What time do you have in Israel?”
Joseph glanced sleepily at the clock. “It’s three in the morning,” he said.
“Sorry,” she giggled. “I’m in Australia doing a story about an Aborigine tribe. Would you believe it? Today, they taught me how to throw a boomerang, isn’t that something? Guess who’s with me? Billy. You wouldn’t recognize him, he’s grown so tall.”
Billy, her eldest son, had been journeying solo around the world for the past several years. To Joseph, she sounded a little tipsy, but his sister was always a little bonkers.
“How is everything with you?” she remembered to ask. “How are Mom and Dad?”
“That’s the reason I’m calling. Something is the matter with Mom.”
Joseph’s wife groaned from her side of the bed. “Who is it?” she asked, half asleep.
“My sister,” Joseph answered.
“What time is it?”
“Three in the morning.”
“Meshugenah,” Rivka muttered. “She’s crazy.”
Joseph took the mobile phone to the hallway and sat in his pajamas at the top of the stairs.
“I can’t hear you,” Ilene called out from across the Pacific Ocean.
“Mom has been having irrational outbursts of anger that she forgets about the moment she calms down,” Joseph explained. “I spoke to a doctor at my synagogue, and he thinks it may be the beginning of Alzheimer’s Disease. I am flying to Florida on Sunday, and I think you should come. Dad can’t deal with this alone. We may have to find them some kind of assisted-living arrangement, or maybe I’ll bring them back to Israel.”
“Oh, poor Father,” Ilene said.
It was typical of Ilene to think about their father when it was their mother who was freaking out. The two women had never gotten along. If Joseph was their mother’s favorite, Ilene was the father’s great love. Even when she screwed up her life with her marriages and divorces, in her father’s eyes, she couldn’t do wrong. Besides, she was famous. She made a good living. And for years, Joseph, with all of his religious fervor, had just managed to get by.
“Oh, Joey,” she said. “This is just terrible. I don’t know what to tell you. I am in the middle of my trip. I’ll have to phone my agent and see what he has scheduled for next week. Of course, I’ll try to come as soon as I can. I certainly can’t look after them with all of the traveling I do.. Maybe Herbie can help them.”
Ilene was referring to Uncle Herbie, their father’s only brother. He had pioneered by moving down to Florida some twenty years earlier. When Joseph’s father retired from his successful lawnmower business, Herbie had encouraged him to retire to Boca Raton, where he could spend the rest of his years, “Looking out at endless green lawns and never have to mow one.” That’s what had prompted their relocation from New Rochelle, New York, down to sunny South Florida, even though Joseph’s mother was very unhappy about moving away from her one and only son.
“Herbie has his own problems,” Joseph reminded Ilene.
“I suppose so,” his sister said. “Don’t we all?”
They left the conversation at that. Ilene promised she would phone Dad and let him know when she would be arriving in Boca.
Joseph sat in the dark, quiet house, savoring the silence. The peaceful moment was something that didn’t transpire very often in his home. He wondered how Billy had gotten to Australia. Once upon a time, before he had decided to give up bohemia for a path of Orthodox Judaism, he himself had a wanderlust for travel, journeying to all sorts of exotic places. Then, after his spiritual revolution, he had dreamed of living in Israel, the land of the Jews. But his mother had been adamantly against it, so he settled in New York City, an easy drive to his parents’ home in New Rochelle.
When his parents relocated to Boca, they wanted him to join them. His mother said he could be even more religious in Boca than in New York. She said they would buy him a house. But he knew that Hashem wanted His children to live in the special holy Land He had chosen for them. Finally, when he could no longer tolerate life in gentile America, he made Aliyah.
Joseph went back to the bedroom, put on a bathrobe, and walked downstairs to the kitchen where he washed his hands and said the blessings that are recited before studying Torah when one awakens in the middle of the night. He felt too agitated to go back to sleep. Instead, he sat in the dining room, opened a Hebrew-English Chumash, and started to read over the week’s Torah portion. But his head couldn’t concentrate on the text. He kept imagining his father sitting alone in the darkness of the big Florida house, filled with a fear of the future, wondering what was happening to the woman he had lived with and loved for nearly sixty years.
Tzvi Fishman was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Jewish Culture and Creativity. Before making Aliyah to Israel in 1984, he was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbis A. Y. Kook and T. Y. Kook. His many other books include: "The Kuzari For Young Readers" and "Tuvia in the Promised Land", available on Amazon. He directed the movie, "Stories of Rebbe Nachman."