{"id":5826,"date":"2013-11-26T08:56:55","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T13:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/blissblog\/?p=5826"},"modified":"2019-08-20T19:45:59","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T23:45:59","slug":"smores-in-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2013\/11\/smores-in-heaven.html","title":{"rendered":"S’Mores In Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"buttefliesarefree\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.\u201d\u2014Richard Bach<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is an excerpt from my book: The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming The Ordinary Into The Extraordinary. <\/a>I share it today in honor of my mother, Selma Weinstein who passed 3 years ago today. May her memory be for a blessing.<\/em>
\nI began writing this final chapter sitting comfortably in a blue and gray tweed seat onboard the Amtrak Auto Train en route from Sanford,<\/p>\n

Florida to Lorton, Virginia. I gazed out the window waiting for the train to take me to my new life\u2014one without parents physically accompanying me. My father took his leave on April 3, 2008, and my mother joined him on November 26, 2010. She passed peacefully, with the\u00a0hospice nurse by her side. Orchestrating it perfectly, my mother made sure that neither my sister, nor I, nor her devoted live-in caregiver Claudiawere present. I had spoken with her earlier in the week, asking if she wanted me to spend Thanksgiving with her and she declined, telling me it wasn\u2019t necessary and that she was ok. I reminded her that it was likely, then, that I wouldn\u2019t be there until the very end. I fully anticipated holding her hand and watching her take her final breath. It wasn\u2019t to be. By Wednesday, when I called her for our morning check-in, she told me she didn\u2019t want to talk. When I contacted her on Thanksgiving, to tell her I love her, her voice was barely audible. The next morning, I spoke with the hospice nurse, who informed me that this formerly vigorous woman \u201cwas very weak\u201d and couldn\u2019t speak. I asked the nurse to kiss her for me. I then heard the voice in my head say clearly, \u201cMom is never going to call you again,\u201d and the tears began to flow. A few minutes later, I said to my father: \u201cTake care of her now,\u201d and then corrected it. \u201cTake care of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less than an hour later, my sister called and informed me that our mother had just died. My reaction was visceral, as a howl of \u201cOh no!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/i>emerged and the sobbing began. As I sat at my desk at my full-time job as a social worker in a psychiatric hospital, it occurred to me that now there was no rush to travel the 1200 miles south to the home in which she and my Dad moved in 1989. She was already gone. When my father died, I arrived four hours prior to the time his heart stopped counting out the flow of his life. My sister and I traveled from our respective homes of New Jersey and\u00a0Pennsylvania, girding ourselves for the ordeal of being motherless daughters. As I entered the Philadelphia International Airport, a smile lit\u00a0my face. \u201cShe did it again,\u201d I thought, choosing likely the least busy travel day since it was the day after Thanksgiving and most people were still likely at their destinations.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s Toyota Camry \u00ae <\/span><\/span>is tucked in with the other autos, <\/span><\/span>hopefully playing nicely. It is filled with well-packed boxes that represent more\u00a0than 20 years of the life that she and my father shared in Ft. Lauderdale\u2014and the three decades prior to that. It amazes me when I consider\u00a0how objects are both personal and impersonal. In reality, they are not flesh and blood beings, but they reflect the style, sense, and sensibility\u00a0of their owner. Elegant and playful clothing to be donated to The Salvation Army\u00ae<\/span><\/span>, which I know she would like other women to enjoy<\/span><\/span>, are waiting in bags in her front hallway. Kitchenware in one of the boxes that I remember from my childhood includes a glass rolling pin, a hard-boiled egg slicer, and (I will endeavor to describe it here) a wide plastic straw-like object with serrated edges that is to be dug into an orange so that the juice can be sucked out. A tarnished silver teapot brought over as one of the few possessions of my Russian immigrant paternal grandmother is nestled amidst the newspaper-wrapped \u2018good china\u2019 that we used at Passover.<\/p>\n

My thoughts spin back to a phone conversation a few weeks ago when her mind was still sharp and her \u2018gravel Gertie voice\u2019 as I referred to\u00a0it since her constricted breathing made it hard to project, was still comprehensible. Often we would take imaginary trips together\u2014sometimes going ice skating on a pond, bundled in warm clothing, sipping hot chocolate afterward. Other times we would go to a parkand play on the swings, our feet feeling like they were touching the sky, or ride on beautifully painted white alabaster horses on a carousel. Herfavorite place to \u2018visit\u2019 was Hawaii, since although she and my father traveled extensively in their later years, they had never visited the 50th state.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Mom,\u201d I inquired, \u201cWhere are we going today?\u201d<\/p>\n

With little girl excitement, she responded, \u201cOh, we\u2019re going to Hawaii, to a luau. But no roast pig.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOk. A kosher luau, then. And what will we do there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll dance the hula and get lei-d.\u201d<\/p>\n

I grinned, knowing that she meant having leis draped over our heads. \u201cSo, two wild women out on the town, getting lei-d. I like that<\/p>\n

idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

She joined me in raucous laughter. And then I asked what we would be eating at the festive occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cS\u2019mores.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the uninitiated, s\u2019mores are a yummy and decadent combo of graham crackers, melted marshmallows, and chocolate bars. My mother<\/p>\n

and I share a love of most things sweet\u2014chocolate being a lifelong drug of choice. \u201cMom, I don\u2019t think they serve s\u2019mores at luaus. I would bet that they serve s\u2019mores in Heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope so,\u201d was her delighted answer.<\/p>\n

I will have to wait until she tells me if that is the case.<\/p>\n