Widowish: A Memoir(5)

I decided to call Joel’s mother.

“I need help, Nancy,” I told her. I didn’t want her to worry, but she needed to know the MS was starting to affect Joel. I also knew that keeping it to myself was becoming too much for me. Things turned bad so fast, and those closest to us didn’t know or understand just how serious our situation was.

“It’s Joel. He’s just been sort of depressed lately. He feels like his legs aren’t working that great.”

“Oh no!” she cried.

“It’s probably just a flare-up.” I tried to minimize it, but I had no idea how long this episode might last. I also understood that no mother, no matter how old their child, wants to hear that their child isn’t doing well. “Maybe you can call and check in on him and make us dinner every now and then?”

“Oh of course. I’ll do that. You know I will,” she said.

Nancy loved cooking for us, even when we didn’t know if she was still a vegan or back to eating meat or just gluten-free or no sugar. When Nancy came to visit, she would bring us knickknacks and doodads she had picked up at various yard sales. These are the things that made her happy but were torturous to Joel and me. Nothing she ever touched would go to waste. It could be a broken piece of colored glass, old wrapping paper, a cigar box. Nancy would try to find a place for it in her home—the same home that Joel grew up in. She had so much stuff everywhere that Joel used to joke, “If we go to my mom’s, don’t put our keys down anywhere. We won’t be able to find them when we want to leave.”

Joel’s parents, like mine, were divorced. So I made a similar call to Joel’s dad. “Please, Hal. If you could meet him for lunch, even once a week, it could help.”

Joel and Hal were close. They spoke on the phone often, and when he retired Hal rented some space in Joel’s office just to have a place to go every day. This was something that Hal’s wife, Rita, encouraged.

Joel was in his twenties when Hal and Rita got married, and she and Joel had a nice rapport. We all did.

I told Hal that I thought Joel was depressed because of the MS.

They had a typical father-son relationship. In large part it revolved around sports. They went to Dodgers games together, Lakers games. Joel was Hal’s pride and joy. Hal looked at Joel the way Joel and I looked at Sophie. His whole being would light up whenever Joel walked into the room.

“Oh sure. I’ll give him a call tomorrow. How’s that?” Hal offered.

“Perfect,” I said.

Joel’s sister, who lives in Northern California, also suffers with an autoimmune disease. By the time Joel was diagnosed with MS, Andrea had been living with lupus for nearly twenty years. Andrea was stoic. We once went to visit her and her family while she was in the midst of a flare-up and recovering from shingles. Shingles! She still managed to trek literally across the entire city of San Francisco in one day. She didn’t complain once.

I called Andrea to let her know that her older brother wasn’t in great shape. They had their compromised health in common. In some ways, when Joel was diagnosed it brought them closer. Andrea, too, said she would check in on her big brother.

A few months earlier, both of our families had come to town for Sophie’s bat mitzvah. It was a Big Deal. Friends and family flew in from around the country. Like a big wedding, the celebration took up the entire weekend. There was a rehearsal dinner the night before, the ceremony itself followed by a huge party, then a family brunch the day after. Planning the event took up most of the year, and Sophie spent several years of Hebrew school preparing for it. I was totally unfamiliar with the rituals of a Jewish education. I was born Jewish and knew what the holidays were, but my home was only Jewish in the cultural sense. My mother, in fact, favored celebrating Christmas over Hanukkah.

While Sophie’s bat mitzvah was a magical weekend, it was obvious that Joel wasn’t feeling well. It was tiring to have so many activities planned. He tried to overcome his exhaustion and overall discomfort. He was so thin! His walking was labored. So while it was a happy and joyous occasion, I noticed Joel’s health was taking a turn. In photographs from that day, Joel is smiling, so proud, so thrilled—but I can see the distress in his eyes and the aches and pains he was feeling.

In a discreet lean toward me during the ceremony, Joel whispered, “I don’t know if I can make it.”

I looked at him, unsure.

“I don’t know if I can move my legs,” he said.

We were on a raised stage, the bimah, and our friends and family filled the audience just below us. All eyes were on us. I didn’t want to create a scene; neither did he.

The rabbi and cantor took turns with Sophie, who mostly led the service in both English and in Hebrew. I held Joel’s hand. I had concern in my eyes and a smile on my face. I inhaled, worrying, but I didn’t know how to divide my attention between him and Sophie.

When it was Joel’s turn to read his speech, something parents do during the service to acknowledge their child’s achievement, he gave me a nod.

“You OK?” I asked.

He got up slowly and steadied himself. He lumbered heavily across the stage to reach the podium. His legs, he later told me, felt like they had metal braces on them.

I am guilt ridden thinking about that now. Why didn’t I help him? It would have been so easy! My arm looped through his, my hand on his shoulder or wrapped around his waist. I could have helped him!