TAKING MUMMY HOME

Leicester Shul

Bringing Mummy home was strangely comforting.
Not because I wasn’t very sad that my Mother had died, not because I wasn’t shocked at her unexpected death. But because her final requests had been fulfilled and Hashem had enabled us to do what she had been asking for a long time.

Over the years Mummy had continually stressed two extremely important requests over and over again .
The first was that despite the fact that she loved us all, her daughters, her grandchildren and great grandchildren, she only ever wanted to live on her own, in her own home, under her own roof and nowhere, absolutely nowhere, else.
The second one was that she wanted to be buried next to my father who had died 32 years earlier.
The first request I tried not to comment on. The best I could say was that I hoped so / if it were possible/ if she was well enough / circumstances permitting etc .
But the second condition we promised , unless totally unforeseen circumstances occurred.

I was no stranger to the cemetery where my father was buried. I had left the town of my birth almost 40 years ago and had been living in Israel for 25 years. But, almost every time I returned to London to visit my mother, I had spent a day to traveling to Leicester, the city in the Midlands, the center of England , where my parents had settled in war time, and where I and my sisters had been born and brought up.

My mother's happiest years of her life were spent in Leicester and although, after my father died, she agreed to move to London, where all her children were then living, her heart had never left this city.

From the bus station, I would take a taxi to the cemetery, ask the driver to wait half an hour and I would visit my father’s and grandparents’ graves and say Tehillim .

When I returned, my mother, who had not been mobile enough to make this journey for many years, always asked me if her ‘spot’ was still waiting next to my father and I always assured her it was.

It never occurred to me, when we had this conversation in the summer, how soon her wishes were to be fulfilled.
A fall in her home and a badly broken leg meant an operation and hospitalization..
In the ensuing time in rehabilitation, severe breathing problems had set in. After two months the doctors decreed that she would have to be released to a facility offering 24 hour medical care.
We dreaded breaking the news to her. Our hearts and minds were mangled with guilt at not being able to avoid what she most dreaded.
Outwardly Mummy appeared to accept the inevitable. We thought she was being kind to us but in retrospect it must have been that her unwavering faith in G’d’s kindness led her to be sure it simply would never happen. .
Twelve days later, as we were trying to arrange for her to be transferred to a Home that we desperately hoped would be acceptable to her, she passed away, calmly whilst sitting in her chair in the rehabilitation ward.
Hashem in His kindness had granted her wish.

Now as my sisters and I tore our shirts in mourning and watched as her body was laid to rest next to my father’s, I could only think, “Mummy, we’re going to miss you terribly, but your wishes were granted and we’ve finally brought you home”.