People always say, “I should have listened to my mother”. 
Well , I didn’t always listen but I did learn so much from her example.  

      She embodied the idea of “in sickness and in health” as she was an amazing caregiver to my father.  At fifty years old,he went almost overnight from a strong vibrant man to someone stricken by extreme rheumatoid arthritis(he still always worked two jobs despite the pain). For thirty-three years mom was there for him, with medicine,even shots, and a constant presence and advocate for him during his many hospital stays. During one hospital stay, they were going to give my father a high blood pressure medication. Luckily my mother stopped them and made them review the chart and see that he had low blood pressure at that time. She would stay by him and keep him company and knit. She would joke that this sweater was from the hip operation, this one was from the heart operation…

     Mom was a working mother at a time when that was much more uncommon.She worked for many years as an English teacher at PS 109, teaching ninth graders to appreciate Shakespeare. She was a caring and dedicated teacher. Her teaching didn’t end in the classroom. My sister and I developed our love of books from her influence. It always amazed me that Mom could have several books going at the same time-one upstairs, one downstairs by the tv. She could even be watching tv while she was reading and still call out the correct answers to the game shows.     
  
     She was an active Hadassah  member for years and years. And I remember her taking me to an ORT meeting when I was young and explaining the expression, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”. She was generous in so many ways, not just with money but with her time. When she retired to Florida full time, she volunteered at the local hospital by helping them run the gift shop. And she bribed G-d. Let me explain…she had a charity box for Israel that she routinely put quarters into on shabbat, and anytime she wanted to put in a good word for her family. When I was going to have an observation the next day, she would make sure to tell me she was going to put in an extra quarter. And, of course, the charity box got added to so much when a family member was ill. 

     When people are sick, sometimes they turn inwards. This did not happen to her at all. She met and loved my son’s future wife Gabby and was very concerned when Gabby was undergoing some health crisis. I Facetimed Mom who was, at the time, on Oxygen, in a hospital, with Covid and the very first words out of her mouth were “How’s Gabby?” 

     My mom passed away February 19th of this year, and she is so missed, but I am so grateful that I got to have her as my mother.