Bernard Axelrad Scholarship Fund

Perhaps with Hanukkah, the season of giving, so recently past, this is the proper time for me to share the following experience with you. It had to do with my mother and brought forth in me mixed feelings of admiration and frustration and, in many respects, encapsulated the relationship between us.

Most people are divided roughly into Givers and Takers. Until recently I felt myself most fortunate, indeed, to have encountered Givers for the most part in both my private and professional lives. As you will see, however, it sometimes can be terribly trying.

The greatest giver of them all is my mother. All her life she has been an inveterate giver, not only to me but to all those whose lives she touched. All my life she has protected me and given of herself unstintingly in my behalf.

Let me tell you about her.

To this day I buy slip-on shoes, without laces, whenever possible because I can’t tie shoelaces securely. While I don’t have to cover any more school books with wrapping paper, please don't ask me to wrap a package for you. (Why not?) Because my mother would observe me as a child struggling with the laces or the books and leap to the rescue! She could do it better, tool so I never learned how.

Even when I holler at her she is distressed more at seeing me distraught than with the screaming directed at her. That’s my mother!

People were and are attracted to her and constantly seek her company. Even as a child, I remember neighbors always feeling free to borrow a cup of sugar or a dollar or whatever they were short of whenever they needed it. Still, I cannot recall any instance of my mother borrowing from them, and to this very day, I am embarrassed to borrow anything from my neighbors. Like her, I would rather hie myself to the store than knock on their door.

Somehow, everyone, after a visit with my mother, goes away feeling better than when they arrived. Her warmth, her ability to listen, and her supportiveness infuse all visitors with good feeling.

My children all adore her, confide in her, seek her counsel and, when troubled, bask in her unconditional love.

But now she is 89 years old, frail, weighs less than a hundred pounds, wears a pacemaker and a hearing aid, and has impaired vision. That doesn't stop her from taking care of my 96-year-old father, an amputee confined to a wheelchair for the past 11 years. She does all her own cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping.

Not only that. Should anyone cross her threshold for a visit, she makes a beeline for the refrigerator and food miraculously appears on the table: A veritable cornucopia, that refrigerator of hers!

Her mind and memory are fully operative even if some of her physical faculties are impaired. Her day is always full with household chores and caring for my father, but she is ever graciously receptive to anyone who calls on her. No matter what the circumstances, nobody is made to feel they are imposing on her.

Mom has innate sense, and to this very day I consult with her whenever I am troubled. Her rare blend of both empathy and wisdom is priceless. I always leave feeling consoled and restored for having unburdened myself to her.

Now to the nub of the problem.

My mother recently fell, while shopping, and suffered severe facial bruises and injuries to the neck and back. She received emergency hospital treatment, was fitted with a cervical collar, and told to rest. It was during this recuperative period that my frustration came to fruition.

Now, I thought, she will have to let me do some of the chores for her. At long last I could do something tangible for her to repay in some small way for the continuing myriad meals, the ‘care packages’ she consistently sends along, and a lifetime of ministering and protecting me.

“A nechtigen tag!”

Would you believe that within two weeks of the fall she was out, creeping along to the store and for groceries, wheeling my father before her? She insisted that it was easier that way because she could hold on to his wheelchair to steady herself and he could carry the purchases on his lap.

No matter when I called to see if I could shop for her, I found her not too open to the suggestion. In the first place, she was still trying to shield me so I wouldn’t have to go out of my way on her behalf; and, secondly, she has all her life been accustomed to giving. I guess she doesn’t even know how to take.

I cried in frustration because I couldn’t somehow be more helpful. It left me with such a feeling of impotence that I could not more fully assist this mother whom I love. How I wished she could take as well as give, but that isn’t meant to be and I must learn to live with it. Perhaps it’s this very indomitable spirit that sustains her and keeps her on such a vigorous schedule at 89.

Now I’ll let you in on a secret.

It is rather nice to know that Mom is still looking after me and worrying about me even though I am a Grandpa myself!

HANUKKAH POSE. Columnist Bernard Axelrad is seen with his parents, Rose and Joe, as they celebrate her 89th birthday and his 96th just before Hanukkah.