When my husband died just over three years ago, I thought I was done with caregiving. I was exhausted and drained from those years, even though we had help from aides the last of them. Mourning doesn’t have a fixed period. What’s the right amount? Thirty days? A year or two? More?

It can come in unexpected waves, or ripples in the stream of life, moments when there’s a sudden memory or sense of being alone, even though I have loving friends and family, wonderful students to teach, and a profession I enjoy.  Once the third anniversary of my husband’s death passed, I finally felt I was ready to enjoy my life, making the best I could of every day. I thought (repeatedly), “I don’t want to take care of anyone. I’m done. I just want to take care of myself.” 

But this past January, just as I was beginning my sabbatical semester leave, which I very much needed to do research, reading, thinking, and writing, (I was even planning to attend a conferences and see friends), everything changed. A beloved brother received a serious medical diagnosis. Only fifteen months younger than me, he would now be in need of care and assistance. As the oldest and his only sister, it has fallen to me to arrange health care, legal matters and various consultations, helping him while also worrying what it might take from me. Another brother has already taken on so much to help him for many years and has been a life-saver for both of us. But this situation has really thrown me. I find myself grieving all over again for a beloved person who is aging with serious health issues. And worrying about my own mortality. After all, I’m the oldest.

I’m sad and tired. Why can’t I be released from the physical, mental, and emotional job of caregiving? I want my life. But what if this is my life? 

A woman who had been in the Parkinsons support group with me said she was worried I was letting myself become “a victim.” What a strange remark. Caring for a family member doesn’t make you a victim, even if you wish you didn’t have to do it. When I talked to his oncologist (a wonderful doctor), she said, “well that’s what sisters are for.”  Hmmnn. The independent woman and long-time feminist balked at that too. 

Friends remind me, “practice self-care,” just as they did during the years Tony was ill. I do take care of myself - I cook and eat well, exercise mind and body, drink good wine, get sleep. Still, the phrase always bothers me, sounding narcissistic and vaguely masturbatory. Recently, I was at Bed Bath and Beyond and when I was checking out, what did I see displayed but a book called Love Yourself: A Woman’s Workbook. See what I mean? Could have been the title for a sex manual!

So here I am, helping my beloved brother as he begins going through chemo. The one kind of caregiving I’m particularly good at is food and nutrition, fully believing food is medicine and pleasure. First thing I did was making nutritious, tasty food that would help during chemo. I cooked red lentil soup with ginger and garlic, turmeric and cumin, a stick of cinnamon. I roasted red peppers and tomatoes and pureed them. I stewed green beans Greek-style with tomatoes, olive oil, lemons and oregano. Even if he would rather have chopped liver, pastrami and Danish pastry from my local Jewish bakery! How can I say no to him? Instead I say, strive for balance and please no chopped liver!.

Those are words to heed for me as well. Sometimes I think I care too much, that (as psychotherapists say) I don’t draw clear boundaries, especially with people I love.  A dear friend told me the other day, “Maybe you need to just accept that you are a person who cares and loves.” I know my caring is a gift (in two senses), but sometimes it feels like I have trouble setting parameters. We are supposed to be open, welcoming (in our communities, in our nation, embracing others, the stranger as symbolized by the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus’s poem echoing Isaiah. It is an ideal, an aspiration. Yet there is no community and no personal identity that doesn’t require limits. How do I find the difficult balance between being open to and caring for others, and not losing or damaging myself? 

The challenge is to find the proper balance, and not stop caring even if we sometimes want to pull back, especially if it’s hard. Maybe that’s the challenge of life, for there will be no end to caring, to being called on to care for others, even if there are limitations to what each of us can do.  

This week is Thanksgiving and there will be an empty seat at my table.

The third Thursday of November had always been our favorite holiday. I loved cooking the food.  But Thanksgiving dinner now has another meaning since it was the last real meal my husband ate. 

I’m coming up on the third anniversary of his death on December 12, 2019. After a cruel progressive illness, Tony died at 6 pm, turned to the west-facing window, where if he eyes had not been closed he would have seen the planes coming over the Hudson River on their way to LaGuardia, their lights sparkling in the dark winter sky.

My mourning had already begun several years before, caring for a person who month by month was losing so much. We knew there was no cure. It was just a matter of time, which honestly seemed endless, and so I hoped it wouldn’t be too long before he died.

When the time came, I felt a deep relief. It was over. But then two men arrived to remove his body. Seeing him put into a black bag, lifted onto a stretcher, and wheeled out, only then it hit me. He really was gone, zipped up into something that could have been a garbage bag. I let out a howl, a sound I could never have imagined.

The funeral was beautiful and simple, conducted by my beloved rabbi and Hazzan (Cantor). The burial was in a small old cemetery 35 miles away, surrounded by woods and some snow on the ground.

Peaceful.  

People have different ways of “moving on” after the death of a spouse. Some people leave the old place and buy or rent a new one. I bought colorful velvet cushions and soft oriental rugs, making a new nest to hibernate in for the winter. Then Covid soon hit, making my isolation even more intense. 

When would it be time to get rid of Tony’s things, his belongings? What do you cast off and what do you keep? It’s been almost three years of this process and it’s still goes on. The first step was easy. But then there were his special coats and jackets, things he splurged on in NYC, which was a new life for him.  Holding these items while about to donate, I saw his body in them, so each thing I gave away prompted another small mourning - all of those tiny moments accumulating became easier to handle emotionally, (sort of), but you feel like it’s never really over.   

I am a keeper (not a hoarder, that’s different). I keep my connections, my friends—have never thrown one away, even when they have left me behind. My childhood was not happy, with a difficult father who absorbed all of my mother’s energy, leaving little for me, but even so, I keep some of my parents’ furniture that I’d loved, making it anew, transforming it into something that gives me pleasure, but also helps me forgive things from the past. There has to be a way to both let go while holding on to what matters.

Having had a long marriage with Tony for more than 35 years, I cannot discard everything. 

Just before that last Thanksgiving, as we sat on the sofa companionnably watching TV, Tony suddenly took off his wedding ring and threw it across the room towards the door. I knew he was done.

What to keep, what to let go—the story of our lives, of living, and yes of growing while getting older. 

Today, the bed goes. Our old mattress is shot. I am replacing our huge king size bed with a queen. I feel bad, throwing out yet something else from our life. I know I will not sleep tonight. 

Saying goodbye, again and again. The mere repetition of these goodbyes are also remembrances, as if the person still lives in our mind, deep in our memories (only disappearing if we lose our memory). Neuroscience surely must have something to say about this. 

For the last few years, the days passing by with Covid, I felt I had no future (ominous words that one of Tony’s doctors said about turning 70). It wasn’t depression, but I just couldn’t get rid of that feeling. But last summer, a mere four months ago, I felt a seismic shift upon returning to Illinois for a month, where I have friends and a house I hadn’t seen for at least five years. I spent lots of time sharing food and wine, fully immersed in present happiness, but also starting to worry less about whether I had much of a future.

The house needed work, more than just a new (expensive) roof. My wonderful son encouraged me saying, “If you love being here, do it! Do what makes you happy!” And that moment turned me around. If I was going to renovate part of my home, I would do it the way I wanted, finding beautiful (but sustainable!) wood floors, colorful oriental rugs, blue ceramic tiles, feeling the artist within me newly alive.

I found pleasure as I envisioned “my” home, which had been “ours,” but no longer. I realized doing this project—renovation in more than one sense—provides me a sense of a future to enjoy, even while honoring the past.

When I return to that house, (aka, my house), in another month, it will still feel like home, just renewed and more beautiful. Just the thought makes me happy.

Tony would have wanted that too.