Today would have been my mother’s 100th birthday. Given how vibrant she was throughout her golden years, I had always hoped that we would be able to celebrate this milestone together, but it was not to be. She passed 9 years ago, and while memories of our time together are still fresh, I am startled by all that had happened since, and feel sad that we could not share those moments with her. I have occasional moments of disbelief that she’s not here.
Mom worked in Accounting at Abraham & Straus, a department store that was subsequently acquired by Macy’s. She described her role as comptometer operator, meaning she spent much of her day adding numbers. Automation was just beginning during her time there, and she would laugh that when the previous day’s sales were compiled by mom and her colleagues, the results were on executives’ desks way before noon… once they automated, the numbers didn’t come out until 5:00 PM. And she always contended that for all other arithmetic operations, a comptometer was useless, but for adding numbers, comptometer was tops.
Mom thoroughly enjoyed going to the theater with her colleagues. She kept the Playbill for every show she saw, and the stack was huge. I think she acquired the love of the theater from her father, who used to take the entire family to his beloved Metropolitan Opera. I love re-telling mom’s story of her father being mortified when his kids fell asleep during the performance, asking rhetorically ‘what kind of people don’t like the opera?’ Donna and I often extend his sentiment to anyone we know who doesn’t like… well, you fill it in.
Mom kept going to the theater throughout her life. At age 85, she traveled by bus with her senior center group to see a matinee. After the show, as the ladies were showing their age navigating the steps of the bus and stopping to chat in the aisle, mom and her close friend waited patiently to get to their seats, whereupon mom turned to her friend and said ‘I hate old ladies’, despite being a bona fide member of that demographic.
Mom’s friendships were deep, whether it was her high school friend (also Rose), her co-workers (Claire and Hilda), or friends from later years (Vida and Tillie), just to name a few. She was a great listener, which I suspect was among the reasons she was such a great friend. We could always count on her to patiently listen to stuff we were facing and calmly support us no matter what nonsense we brought her. She was a role model when it came to commitment to family. Nieces and nephews on both sides of our family embraced her deeply, which made her time being among the last of her generation really special. She felt the love, and gave even more back. Mom was far less about talking-the-talk than she was about walking-the-talk. And she was a super grandmother and great-grandmother, forming strong bonds with each next generation member.
And talk about growing old gracefully. Mom lived independently, with tons of support from Linda (Lynn: words are inadequate to describe all you did…you’re the best). Because her mother had dementia – or Alzheimer’s, or whatever it was before we gave them specific names – mom was always terrified that same fate awaited her, which thankfully it never did. If I was with her while she was watching Wheel of Fortune, she’d kick my ass. Linda and I… and mom’s doctor, to whom she gave more weight… convinced her to give up driving at 88. We had someone come in twice a week to drive her to appointments and errands. Mom was giving directions for a shortcut to her driver, a young lady who had reason to doubt the navigation skills of an 88-year old. When they arrived as intended and bypassed the traffic, the driver said to her ‘you’re pretty sharp, Rose’. Her feisty spirit was on vivid display even to the week she died. I overheard her telling her caregiver ‘in my next life, I’m not giving up the car!’
Independent. Strong. Patient. Devoted. Loving. Everyone who knew her could add lots more to describe her. I hope all those who knew her will cherish the moments they shared. I do.