Dear Mom:
Child Rearing
Mom on Randallstown Farm Porch Swing reading to Ephraim (l) and Shoshana.
Savta reading Keep Your Mouth Closed, Dear to MichaEl
You were a pioneer in so many ways. You were among the first in the 1950s to have a large family and to breastfeed. I believed that my siblings were more compassionate because we had been nursed instead of bottle fed. In child-rearing, you talked to us like adults and treated us as individuals. A babysitter was amazed that each child in our family was so different. As a kindergarten teacher, your training in a demonstration school lent depth to my own parenting approach when you reported to your supervisor:
You: Johnny hit Billy for NO REASON!
Supervisor: Children NEVER do ANYTHING for no reason!
My favorite child-rearing rule of yours (and Dad’s) was to create a space in which the child would rarely get into trouble. It is not good for a kid to hear “Don’t do that!” or “Don’t touch that!” all day! I tried to put that rule into practice so Ephraim and Shoshana would benefit from your wisdom.
Valuing Beautiful Workmanship
Entryway Mahogany Staircase. The mahogany-topped steps would uncreak in the same order that you went up them, so if you went into an upstairs room when nobody else was home, it sounded like someone was following you! Lisa used to slide down the bannister whenever she would return from grad school in Chicago.
20 foot high gilded mirror in our Entry Hallway, rescued by Mom from a Federal Hill home remodel. Note fancy ceiling moldings in mirror
When it came time to buy the mansion on Old Forest Road, you and Dad quickly recognized the grand potential of an old building whose foot-and-a-half wide stone walls made the contractor give up on knocking it down. The floors were of inlaid mahogany. You stripped the black paint off the door hinges to reveal that they were silver underneath! Ornately carved Italian marble fireplaces adorned 5 rooms including Lisa’s bedroom and and yours.
Mansion Side Porch Garden planted by Mom: Azaleas, tulips, creeping phlox
We grew up with the beauty of century-old windows and a large garden.
Eric smelling Mom’s Tulip-Muscari border lining our long driveway. Trowel on driveway.
Don’t Eliminate; Substitute!
Mom’s Half Cornish Game Hen Stuffed with Wild Rice was so yum on Shabbat dinners!
I admired how you and Dad turned your lives around to become observant Jews–and enjoy it–much to the chagrin of your own families. You remained true to your desire that everyone–rich or poor–enjoy delicious and healthy affordable gourmet food by teaching your gourmet, healthy, kosher cooking classes in Baltimore and on Florida TV. You made Shabbat dinner so special: yummy half-servings of Cornish hen stuffed with sauteed wild rice whenever Dad’s father, Pop-pop Aiken, came for dinner. Pop-pop would hum ditties while bouncing little Eric on his knee. I believe he was the only relative who didn’t object to your becoming observant, as your brother Mark was very upset that you stopped making his favorite shrimp cocktail.
Substitution was key! I remember your wanting to teach poor people how to feed their families by learning to substitute more expensive items with whatever was currentlly on sale. Neither kashrut nor allergies fazed you. Noting that shellfish dishes did not depend so much on the actual shellfish but rather on the seasonings, you substituted kosher fish and created such delicacies as Cod (to replace Crab) Imperial! Wheat-intolerant, you invented almond-meal matza-ball soup so all could enjoy Pesach!
Several of your admirers, including your daughter-in-law Diane and my best college friend Ann Eisenberg Shinnar, gratefully recall your wedding shower gifts of a recipe box filled with laminated versions of your favorite recipes to help them start off their married lives.
In 1997, I followed your lead and got Quinoa approved for Pesach, so Jews could forgo the monotony of potatoes at every meal and the gluten-allergic could enjoy healthy gourmet Pesach foods. Your favorite dish was quinoa casserole topped with braised asparagus and pesto! In 2019 I again followed your lead and invented goat milk and honey ice cream cakes for people allergic to gluten and sugar.
Exercise and Intellectual Pursuits
Lisa Models Mom’s Hunting Jacket
Being a Renaissance Woman–integrating mind and body–came so easy for you! Your outdoor sports included water safety instruction (teaching swimming, canoeing, sailing, etc.), horseback riding, and skiing. You attained the rank of sharp-shooter at the Maryland Armory (where they admitted that the women had better aim than the men!).
You shared your joy of ballroom dancing by teaching on cruise ships, and took difficult ballet classes into your 80s [see dance section for photos].
Yet you also avidly followed the elections and knew each –even when there were 17 Republicans vying for presidential candidate in the 2016 primaries!
A note about your excellence as swim instructor. Mom, there are happy kids in Israel today who learned to swim and dive through you. Sometimes in the pool, I see a father, who barely knows the Crawl, trying to teach his son to swim. The kid cannot bend his arm right. “Just slide your thumb along your side from your thigh to your ribs, like you are zippering up your side,” I tell him, demonstrating what I learned from you. Suddenly, both the son and the father can envision the correct stroke.
Once I saw an Arab kid standing on the side of a pool, trying on his own to figure out how to dive in. “Does he speak Hebrew?” I asked his father. No, he answered. “Tell him to put his chin on his chest and his arms over his ears” I instructed, hearing your words from 55 years ago. On his second try, the kid dove beautifully.
Another day, a girl stood on the side of the pool, equally frustrated but more fearful than the boy. I gave her the same diving directions. She dove, but too close to the pool wall. As she stood on the side of the pool, her mother treaded water on her right and I did on her left. I took her mother’s hand, making a bar of sorts with our arms and said, “Now dive over the bar.” BEAUTIFUL dive. Mom, you would have been proud! The next day, I came back and the girl and her mother greeted me with big smiles, as the girl repeatedly made nearly perfect dives as if she had been doing it all her life.
Lover of Biology
Mom, you were a lover and truster in G-d’s world of nature. When I asked you if you believed in G-d, you said, of course!
Me: Then why didn’t you ever mention G-d when we were growing up?
Mom: Because anyone who ever had a baby has to believe in G-d!
A physiology major at Goucher College (when it was in downtown Baltimore) whose lab course involved dissecting a decaying shark during hot months, you was the bright side and remembered that you and your lab partners always got a seat on the trolley going home after class!
Nutrition for the Masses
Thanks for living the value of justice and fairness over money and power. From the time I was small, I remember you wanting to teach poor people to stretch their food money by buying whole foods instead of processed “empty calories.” You taught nutritional science at the college level to help as many people as possible reach optimal health and happier lives. You sat at the feet of the original researchers in nutrition and learned the truth directly from them before it got politicized and twisted. To give us the strength and ideological background to fight for our own bodies and kids, you taught how to tell junk science from real and how our food and health had both become degraded over the past century. “I don’t know why they don’t have a contract out on you!” worried one of your students….
The most popular lecturer on campus, your course filled up first. Students who were shut out, undeterred, snuck into your classroom illegally. “They’re hanging out of the windows!” you used to complain jokingly. Since you practiced good nutrition yourself, you were a walking advertisement for your course. A dietician taught another nutrition class at the same time as yours. When you asked why so many students transferred to your class, they replied, “Because we don’t want to look like HER!”
You wrote the first well-organized nutrition textbook based on the various body systems–skeletal, nervous, digestive, etc.–so that people could quickly grasp that all the organs in one system needed the same nutrients.
Your students love what they learned. A recovering AIDS client threw a party in your honor because you found the nutritional keys to curing AIDS. Your students thanked you for teaching them how to become strong and energetic. One student, who came back to thank you, had used your nutrition teachings to cure her father of cancer! You had had experience with this when you got Dad cured of cancer at a Mexican nutrition clinic (which the US medical mafia would not tolerate within US borders).
One reason you decided to reissue your nutrition textbook at the age of 90 years old was to save the lives of your friends at Protea Hills, who you believed were dying because of the poor food quality. When we had first visited Protea, the chef was amazing and served a variety of healthy proteins (fish, chicken, and meat) and delicious gluten-free pastas made entirely of vegetables! But once you moved in, they fired the chef (“too expensive”). Much of the food was unhealthy or doused in black pepper, which you were allergic to. For years you ate your own food alone in your room. But you felt for your neighbors. If only Protea could learn good nutrition, you thought, they would fix the food and save lives. So in June 2018, you asked me to reissue your Nutrition book.
We couldn’t go to press with the 2005 version without updates. The new book would need your classroom explanations and slides. US food history, irrelevant to overseas readers, was moved to the end. I wrote a more nuanced discussion of who should drink milk based on numerous cheese- and ice cream-making courses (Israeli Dept. Agriculture, cheese school near Milano, Food Tech Dept. at Penn State U), Plus, we needed to fill in advances in the Human Genome Project, Dr. Peter D’Adamo’s and Dr. Dean Ornish’s findings, MTHFR research, etc.
New readers would also miss your in-person warmth and humor. So I introduced to your readers many of your nutrition teachers and added funny and personal stories, the back-story of how the major nutrients were discovered, and what was thought at the time of discovery, so people could remember each nutrient better. I condensed your original textbook to 250 pages and wrote another 250 pages. We worked together by phone and computer for 16 months! But this was your legacy and you deserved for your legacy to be complete and honorable.
You were upset that it took so long (“Diane, I’m 91–I’m not getting any younger….”) and Eric and Lisa were upset that you had wanted to pay me for one of the 16 months of work, but eventually I heard from you: “I’m reading the book and enjoying every word!”
In pricing the textbook, you stuck to your principles. I favored a modest $70, the price that resellers were selling your original 2005 textbook. (The competition was selling for many times that price.) You wouldn’t go above $40.
Why? I argued (unsuccessfully).
Because you should see how happy the students are when they hear they don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars for their textbook, you replied. (The text still sells for $40.)
Not One To Sit on the Sidelines
You were not afraid to go head-to-head with the Big Guys! As president of the Florida Nutrition Counselors Association, you made numerous trips to Tallahassee to educate the Florida legislature about nutritionists and stop the AMA and their associates from legislating nutritionists out of business. Your biggest love was Nutrition for Mental Health. Twice you travelled to Washington, DC, to address Senate subcommittees to fight for mental health patients who were only being offered drugs in mental health clinics instead of the nutrients they needed. I cracked up when you told them: Depression is NOT caused by a Prozac® deficiency!
Successful Triad: Nutrition, Energy Healing, Spiritual Healing
Yet I knew that nutrition couldn’t go it alone. By the 1970s and ’80s, the Mind-Body connection birthed successful therapies such as Touch for Health and Craniosacral Therapy. My dentist-friend Grant Cylus and his colleagues were using muscle testing in advanced work at the University of Maryland Pain Clinic. Family Constellations (spiritual-ancestral trauma healing), born in Germany, found a center in nearby Pennsylvania. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan was revealing ways to heal through Jewish meditation. I felt much more comfortable in this world.
When we moved to Jacob’s Ladder Farm in 1993, I found a teacher, Carolyn Lee Tubman, to teach me to muscle test. I wanted to test which foods and other items Ephraim and Shoshana were allergic to, so they would never have to repeat the horrors of Richard’s and Lisa’s scratch tests. Also, Ephraim and Shoshana were encountering malevolent spiritual beings on the farm, which had been deserted for some months. Carolyn, and later her friend Carol and eventually Rabbi Bar Tzadok of Chicago, all came out to the farm to do corrections. My job was to say tehilim, light candles, and put Magen Davids in the windows.
You were there by my side as I became adept at receiving messages from Shamayim. I couldn’t muscle test in the early days, but you could, so I asked questions and you, with your unwaveringly clear connection to Shamayim, gave me true answers. Which kindergarten was good for Shoshana–and was it worth driving her an hour each way to Silver Spring? Which supplements would help Jacob recover from Lyme disease? (Jacob’s home nurse asked for your protocol so she could duplicate his success with her other Lyme patients!)
Which month would be best to take Ephraim and Shoshana to visit Israel? I asked this question in Spring 2000 because Ephraim was going to turn 10 years old that fall and to wait much longer would mean he would forever have an American accent in Hebrew. However, we were told not to go in the fall because there would be a war. And that’s how you and I were warned of the Second Intifada 6 months before it happened!
Today, only 5% of my practice uses my knowledge of nutrition, homeopathy, herbs, and Bach Flower Remedies. With Shamayim’s help, I remove the need for them because I have learned to trust and listen to Hashem by working with you.
How Our Family Medical History Is Changed by Spiritual and Emotional Needs
Mom, you have survived nearly 25 hospitalizations for heart attacks, strokes, and TIAs (minor strokes). One time, hospitalized, you asked me if your grandchildren would consider you a burden. “No,” I replied, “They are very happy to know you bequeathed them such good genes!”
Your high cholesterol and high blood pressure were as much situational (reacting to stress) as medical. At some point, you began eating unhealthy pastas and desserts, and we would try to convince you to eat healthy. Eventually you broke out with the truth and told me that no one was successful here because we weren’t getting to the real issue, which was that you were afraid of dying. I told this to the family and asked Lisa, as a psychologist, why she never dealt with this with you. She didn’t have an answer but recommended that maybe you should talk to some rabbi about the afterlife. Of course this was not an emotionally fulfilling answer to calm your stress.
Time and again your blood pressure would go up when you are hospitalized, which is a very stressful place for you, and you have been able to lower your blood pressure with Lisa’s calming techniques.
Many years ago, I was puzzled why you kept having heart attacks and strokes when you traveled twice a year to Israel for the chagim. I decided to fly to Florida and pack for you and travel with you each visit and each return flight, and suddenly the heart attacks and strokes disappeared. Your only travel-related incident was when I could not accompany you back to the US right after Shoshana’s wedding, and you promptly had a heart attack that made you miss Elan’s wedding.
Once you wanted me to help you say goodbye to Jeff, whose birthday, if I recall correctly, was that Sunday. I knew you were just dehydrated but I asked you if you wanted me to spend Shabbat with you. You did. We had a relaxing time. At the end of Shabbat, you asked me gratefully, “How did you know?” Meaning, how did I know you were not going to die. I replied, “Mom, I have a lot of plans for you over the next 5 years. There are more great-grandchildren to be born, another book to write, and many more things that I don’t know about yet!”
When you were happy and fulfilled, the heart attacks, strokes, and TIAs stopped. From June 2018, when we started work on revamping your Nutrition book, until January 26, 2021, you had only one hospital visit!!!! We could joke and say that Nutrition stopped your heart attacks, but we would be referring to the book (and its mission, to save people’s lives).
I believe the repeated COVID isolations contributed to your final stroke. Every time someone at Protea tested positive for corona, you and Jennie were shut up in your apartment unable to see anyone else for up to two weeks at a time.
The key, though, was when you told Lisa a day or two before the stroke that you felt you could lose everything. And then you did! You lost your mobility, your independence, your apartment and all your meaningful belongings. Perhaps your stroke could have been avoided if someone had worked with you on this issue in a fulfilling way.
In any case, on a spiritual level, it was clear that you were trying to resolve this issue by the second-best way–to experience losing everything–and then coming out of it again. I don’t believe you expected to be put away in institutions that would keep you friendless and immobilized. Your eagerness to recover each time I worked with you confirmed that.
So we could say that, in our family medical history, you were prone to strokes. But we actually see that when you are happy, supported emotionally, and fulfilled, the medical history magically goes away.
Your Investments
You were a good investor, even in years that other family members lost a lot of money. Yet we have heard for at least 10 years that “Mom is running out of money” or “Mom has to live within her budget.” You did not take fancy vacations, buy expensive jewelry, have a fancy car, or live in an upscale location. You often had cleaning/driving help only a few hours once or twice a week, if that. Only once you moved to Protea Hills in Israel did you have any major upkeep–and even that was only $8,500-$9,000 a month, offset by about 1,000 shekels a month from Bituach Leumi, an allowance from the Israeli government for a helper since you were over 80 years old, and about $1,700 each month for Social Security. So maybe $5,000 a month, or $60,000 a year.
Yet you should have begun your life after your divorce with half of Dad’s millions of dollars to help you live comfortably and serenely–without worry for paying for extras such as 100 shekels for social worker Hinanit’s baby shower to express appreciation for Hinanit’s 4 years of making things good for you and Lisa at Protea, or even $4,000 to express your appreciation for my hundreds of hours of work and expertise on your nutrition book. However, even the baby shower appreciation turned Lisa into a raving maniac demanding that 80 shekels of your gift be returned.
You only “ran out of money” a few months ago. Why, a few months ago, didn’t you have millions of dollars still left in your bank account?
Lisa has been after your money since the divorce, masterminding a deal for you to give up suing Dad to reveal his actual worth. In exchange, Lisa, Eric, and I would each pay $8,000 a year (plus you would continue to get $1,700 Social Security, which you would have continued to get anyway), for a total of $24,000 + $20,400, or $44,400, which Lisa assured us would allow you to live comfortably for the rest of your life. Indeed, this was not enough to support you the last seven years. But Lisa had painted a dire picture of a major chunk of money wasted on lawyers if the two of you went to court, and I am very ashamed to say that I jumped at the chance to participate in your support and agreed to the deal. In fact, Lisa was only protecting for herself the annuities that Dad had put in her name as a tax shelter. She got you to sign that she and Eric should have power of attorney over your health and finances. When it was time for you to close out your Wells Fargo account because you suspected–correctly–something fishy, we were both shocked to find that Lisa had had your bank account marked POD (payable upon death) to only Lisa and Eric!
Now really, with all the money you should have received from Dad, you should have had the finest in care and rehab. But in the end, since Lisa illegally took control over your health against your will and mine, she had the final say in preventing your accessing the treatments you needed.
What I Most Remembered
Garden Party at Savta’s, Protea Hills. Some guests, from left: Eliana, Jeff, Mom’s favorite yellow rosebush, Batya, Sammy, Lisa, Mom, Shoshana, Yael(?), Devora
At shiva, Lisa asked me what I most remembered about you. I said, all the things we (Mom and I) did together to make life special for you–your apartments, your garden, your nutrition book, your aliya cruise, and so much more!
Century Village of Boca
Most of these memories would not have happened if Eric, and then Lisa, had not announced that they would no longer be taking care of you about 10 years ago. Eric, being local and unemployed, used to visit you each hospitalization and took the flak from your new doctor under Obamacare, Dr. Rehman. Dr. Rehman was very angry that you had refused to take the deadly Lipitor and had told Eric that you would definitely die if you didn’t take EVERY medication she prescribed for you. (Despite not taking the Lipitor, you insisted on living another 10 years without it.
) Eric decided that you were playing a game of one-upsmanship between you and the medical industry. This made Eric very angry, even though it had been your life’s work both in your classroom teaching and in your legislative activism to expose bad medical practice and teach more effective nutritional alternatives. Eric told us he had “washed his hands” of you.
) Eric decided that you were playing a game of one-upsmanship between you and the medical industry. This made Eric very angry, even though it had been your life’s work both in your classroom teaching and in your legislative activism to expose bad medical practice and teach more effective nutritional alternatives. Eric told us he had “washed his hands” of you.Lisa followed suit and called me to say, “Sara-Malka, if anyone is going to take care of Mom, it’s going to have to be you!”
Since I needed to be in the US every 7 weekends for two years for my Family Constellation Training in Seattle, I promised the family that I would visit you on each return trip to Israel. This added considerable time and expense to my trips since Seattle and Boca are at opposite ends of the US!
I attended your medical appointments, both standard and holistic, and got to know your practitioners and medical issues. Your neurologic chiropractor, Dr. Edgar Romero, had the most medical knowledge of anyone. He and I had fun working together on our visits.
Lisa never did this and so was quite mystified at how to handle things once you came to Israel. She found she could get extra mileage on her credit card if all your expenses went through her (reimbursed by Eric, who retained control over your US bank account). In fact, Lisa never did know what worked and didn’t work, nor did she ever visit you at Century Village–and only a handful of times at your apartment all your years at Protea. She even told me once that she had a speaking engagement in Florida and not to tell you because then you would want her to visit!
I also went with you to events that you wanted company for, such as fashion shows and evening entertainment.
Setting Up/Selling Your Century Village Condo
It was a lot of work but worthwhile. When I first visited you in Century Village, I was shocked to see you living as in a slum. Your expansive living room was so full of unpacked moving boxes that there was room for only one sofa! The study was a mess, with books in piles and the sofa covered with grocery receipts from two years ago and your obstetrician’s (Dr. Mandy) instructions for your pregnancies with Lisa and Jeff from 1956 and 1958! Even though you had family in the same town, no one had helped.
I poured in the hours and set up a library and filing system so that everything was neat and well-maintained. I rearranged the living room for just the priority beautiful things that you wanted and displayed them well. The moving company that Eric had recommended had very unprofessionally deposited your museum-quality chandelier–with all the crystals still attached–lopsided on the floor, where it collapsed under its own weight. I found a chandelier restorer who works for museums, and wonder of wonders! He restored the messed up chandelier to its former state. You were finally living in elegance and dignity! The Century Village delivery guy said your apartment was the most beautiful one in all Century Village!
The sales market agreed because the condo sold for $60,000 more than any comparable condo. That was my contribution to your upkeep.
Your Aliya Cruise–Royal Caribbean’s Jewel of the Sea
One of three Canary Islands we stopped at on Moms Aliya cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Rome!
When Natan found you an attractive place in Israel for you to live (Protea Hills), it was time to do some problem-solving. How could we get you to Israel without risking thrombosis of your leg veins from flying for 13 hours from Florida to Tel Aviv? I found a Royal Caribbean repositioning cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Rome–with stops at 3 Canary Islands and Gilbraltar–leaving chol hamoed Pesach, 2016!
From Rome, it would be an easy 3 hour flight to Tel Aviv! A two-person cabin with balcony cost less than a first-class flight on El Al and included 3 meals a day (and snacking in between). Since there was no luggage limit, we were able to take all your beautiful clothes, which we had painstakingly cleaned for the trip! We had bought attractive clothes at a boutique dress store before we left, so your entire wardrobe was in tip-top shape!
Once aboard, I braced for a very boring 15 days. But you were excited. I hadn’t realized you like cruises. I found ourselves on the deck waiting for the cruise ship to leave Ft. Lauderdale.
Me: Mom, why are we here?
You: To watch all the sailboats.
Me: You like sailboats?
You: Yes. And I always wanted to take a transatlantic cruise!
I was very happy we were doing something you liked! Every day, you had bridge, live music, movies, and interesting people to meet. One morning, we went to the breakfast bar and, toting our food-filled trays, looked for somewhere to sit.
Let’s see, I thought, surveying the scene, where can we hide in the most deserted corner of the room where nobody will notice us? You, to my horror, boldly marched over to two bald-headed red-necks and asked if we could sit down. Sure, they replied.
They turned out to be very well-informed travelers who had much to say about our trip.
“Mom,” I asked when we finished breakfast, “How did you know they were so knowledgeable?”
“Oh,” you replied, “I just try to find the most interesting-looking people in the room and sit down next to them!”
Responsiveness to Energy Healing
20 years ago, when–unbeknownst to me–you appoint Eric and Lisa as your medical and financial powers of attorney, the fields of energy healing and craniosacral therapy were more undeveloped. But by the time that the doctors told Lisa at your 2021 stroke that if you didn’t have feeling on your left side while in the hospital, you would probably never have function on your left side, you had both a daughter and granddaughter who were craniosacral therapists and knew how to ease or reverse the injuries. I was much-helped by the expertise of your neurologic chiropractor, Dr. Edgar Romero, who recommended THYTROPHIN PMG, IODOMERE, RNA, and OLPRIMA DHA / EPA.
Dr. Romero warned the RNA might take up to two days to work. With the help of craniosacral therapy, it took only 7 hours! That is, two weeks after your stoke, when the supplements finally arrived from Florida, I whatsapped all the siblings the remarkable video of you in your new wheelchair, Mohammed on the left side and Jennie on your right, watching as you lifted and moved your supposedly immobile left foot and leg.
Eric, who only knew what Lisa told him, instead of being grateful, was furious. He forbade me from ordering anything more from Dr. Romero because “he hadn’t looked at Mom’s scans first.” Yet the scans had not helped the doctors restore your functionality. Tuning into your energy, had.
Lisa chose not to send you to a real rehabilitation hospital or get you the needed physical therapy and craniosacral therapy, even as part of home care, although she had helped arrange home care for Ira and knew Miriam Kra (or would very soon). Yes, you would need several months of nearly-daily physical therapy and craniosacral therapy to restore your functionality. But that would be a lot cheaper–and way more compassionate–than seeing you daily deteriorating in pain and dysfunction, getting 2-year-long neglect-caused bedsores, being sent 8 times in 3 months to the emergency room for 5 days of antibiotics each time because your diaper had not been changed or cleaned, and requiring a second mitapel to turn you every two hours during the night! And so you continued in your lonely and poor state with 37 other patients at Protea Siudi–none of whom spoke English–in the noisiest environment for getting better. Maale Adumim and Herzog were equally nighmarish and you got more neglect-related injuries such as scabies and a second pressure-type wound.
In one of your many neglect-caused hospital visitations, you were so weak you had barely roused yourself for 7 days. Lisa mis-termed this “sleeping.” I was visiting on a Thursday, and you wanted me to spend the night there, so I did. The next morning, the 8th day, I left an hour before Lisa got there. I received an excited whatsapp from Lisa:
“Mom’s awake!!! She’s talking!!!! Do you want to call so she can bentsch you for Shabbat?” Lisa asked
“No,” I said tiredly. “Of course she’s ‘awake.’ I just spent nearly 24 hours working on her! Look, Mom wants to recover. Why don’t we put together a treatment plan?”
Nothing ever came of it–even when I sent to everyone a video in August 2022 narrated by your physical therapist of your voluntarily moving your supposedly paralyzed left arm after a craniosacral session–a full year and a half after your stroke!
At the end of Pesach 2022, Jacob, Ephraim, and I visited you at the basement corona ward in Herzog. You were having trouble with your blood pressure. I spent a half hour working on your blood pressure, and then we had to leave.
A few days later, as you were getting moved upstairs to the siudi unit at Herzog, we all got an amazed message from Lisa: She said that your blood pressure was normal! She added that your blood pressure was enviable even among your children! Nice going, Mom!
Quiet Conversations Near the End
One day, a few weeks before the end, you told me: The people here (at the 11 Diskin apartment) act like they are working in my best interest, but nothing could be further from the truth!
I couldn’t answer because I had been blackmailed that if I said anything that those in power didn’t like, they would restrict my access to you.
One day you remarked about the poster Shoshana had made of your six young great-grandchildren. “I wish I could be like her,” you said wistfully of Shoshana’s smiling face.
“But you ARE like her,” I said. “Where do you think she got it from?”
“Where?” you asked.
“From you!” I pointed to you. “You even have 3 boys and 2 girls, just like Shoshana! Do you realize how many people already have your genes? 5 children, 9 grandchildren, and 6 great-grandchildren. And you are likely to have many more!” You smiled. Then I made a poster of my favorite and most dazzling pictures of you, to put next to Shoshana’s poster, so you could see how alike you are.
You must have remembered this conversation when, a few weeks before your death, I asked you if I could do anything for you.
“No. You reassured me,” you replied quietly. “That’s about all you CAN do!”
Helping People Together
Making the world a better place was at the forefront of who you were. Even sitting in your wheelchair, on the neshama level, you asked me to help you organize a healthy hospital. It would be just north of Laniado Hospital on the Netanya oceanfront, so that you could take an ailing child or parent for a wheelchair ride to enjoy a wide-open sky, beautiful ocean, and clean air.
After helping you organize such a hospital, you then wanted me to run the Department of Muscle Testing. Each new patient would meet with a team of 5 muscle testers, including myself. The kitchen would provide vegetable juices, bone or vegetable broths, and simple gourmet healing dishes for mineral or protein deficiencies, fruit-based detoxes and phytochemical enhancers, etc. A sample treatment plan might include:
3 carrot juices with celery per day,
3 craniosacral sessions per week,
Pool rehab 3 times a week,
1 Family Constellation today and one in 40 days, etc.
This would be the patient’s “Chart.” The hospital would provide all conventional medical back-up equipment and treatments too.
The tagline for this hospital would be: The Hospital You WANT To Send Your Mom To!
Everyone who heard this plan at your shiva–and for months before–wanted to see this happen! One healer offered to work there! A more practical shiva visitor started thinking of donors to make it a reality!
Shiva Connections
In your zechut, Mom, shiva in Bat Ayin was full of fertile interactions between acquaintances trying to help each other. Almost everyone spent an hour or two in our home. One night, Shoshana and her best friend Talia walked in together, even though neither of them knew the other was coming. One person who wanted me to teach her how to do craniosacral therapy as part of her pool therapy received an offer from another friend of a few drops of water from the Baal Shem Tov’s mikva to add to her pool. Another person asked questions about craniosacral therapy as I have developed it and a second visitor said I was using principles from Kabbalah and Chasidut that few people know and offered to teach a shiur on that in your memory. One person asked about my goats and offered to pass on some of my harassment documents to her husband, who is a big Rav in the yishuv and may be able to influence things in our favor. Another two friends who arrived at the same time wound up committing to each other to create a handcraft retirement village for older people that includes an orphanage so the two groups can benefit from each other….. And so your legacy of helping people through creative, natural means and connection to Shamayim has continued even through your shiva period.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the help of the men-folk in the family:
Natan–Who made possible your living in Eretz Yisrael due to his finding a wonderful place for you to live–Protea Hills. He also rode his bike to Herzog Hospital numerous times and would visit you in the afternoons at 11 Diskin.
Jacob–Who fixed all your electrical issues–computer and otherwise–including setting up your sound system and taking you shopping for a new record player. He hung thousands of crystals on your crystal chandelier and found a way to hang your brass chandelier. He made two trips to IKEA and set up your two bookcases–so I could arrange your books into Nutrition and Fiction/Childrens Books bookcases. When Jeff wanted us and Shoshana’s family to spend Shabbat with you, Jacob had only a few hours to buy a refrigerator and drive it on top of his car to Protea erev Shabbat. Jacob’s good deed continued to pay dividends, as you were the only resident at Protea-Tomeich who didn’t eat at the dining room and therefore needed far more fridge space than you had been originallly given. But your favorite dividend was that “I have something no one else on the floor has: Ice cubes!”
Ephraim–Who spent 11 days taking care of you–including defrosting your small fridge and helping you with computer issues–so Jennie could take a well-deserved break to visit Europe.
Savta’s Last Birthday Gathering before Covid: Dec 2019. From left; back row: Yael, Richard, Lisa, Eric, Mom, Jeff, Diane, Jacob, Rachel. Front row: Brett, Eliana, Dvir, MichaEl, Shoshana, Ephraim, Elan.