The Foxtrot: My Mother’s Last Dance
by Ellen Weisberg
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
You know how you can hear phrases so many times, for so many years, from the same person, that you stop hearing it? “Hi, pussycat” and “Hi, sweetheart” were the words my mother would greet me with either in person or over the phone. That is, unless she was angry with me, and then the words icily changed to “Oh, hi, Ellen,” a phrase that could be flat and soul-crushing at the same time. “Hi, pussycat” and “Hi, sweetheart” were words I ended up both taking for granted and deeply relying on for a sense of security for all the years of my life. To think a day would come when I would no longer hear them was unfathomable.
After her diagnosis of metastasized breast cancer, I had been soberly and silently bracing myself for the day when both the words and the woman who said them to let me know I was in her presence would be taken away forever. I have always joked about how I could never be an actor because I can’t memorize lines, but the one thing I can do is cry on cue. All I had to do was think about the unspeakable happening to my mother, and it would bring on a flood of tears. A week and a half ago, the unspeakable did in fact happen, unsurprisingly accompanied by... a flood of tears.
I cared for my mother for close to five years after my father died. His death, unlike my mother’s, was sudden and unexpected. I had been divinely blessed with one final conversation with my father that wasn’t tense and disturbing and that was focused on something other than some financial issues he and my mother were weathering and that I was trying to navigate. We had been able to banter about a couple of pleasant topics during that magical chat that we were both interested in, and I was able to end our conversation with: “I love you.”
We always think we have more time. We mindlessly go through our days and busy ourselves with the things that life conditions us to think are important, until we are faced with something that bonks us on the head with the reality that time is a gift, not a guarantee. And so, when I flew down to Florida to attend my father’s funeral, I hugged my mother hard and silently vowed to be there for her in ways I felt I wasn’t with my father, at least not in the final weeks of his life. She hugged me back, but her shock and grief were stronger at that moment than her need for consolation, and she suddenly let go of me with her eyes wide and searching for answers that she knew weren’t there.
A poignant reminder of the connection I had with my mother was her response to a question asked by the rabbi who had taken care of my father’s funeral. He had gathered the immediate family in a small sitting room adjacent to where my father’s funeral had been held. He probed her about her plans to go forward.
“I think I’d like to live near my daughter,” she said, turning to face me.
Hearing her say that gave me a mix of emotions, mostly gratitude and love, but also relief. I had vowed to try to be there for her in a way I wasn’t for my father, and having her close enough so as not to have to jump on a plane was going to help me keep my vow. That said, knowing my mother, and knowing me, I knew this transition and new normal for everyone would be rough going.
I caught a glimpse of my impending mom-laden life many months before she moved up north. Despite much time having passed since my father himself passed, my mother insisted, loudly and with lots of cursing, that it was too early for us to look for a place for her and that she wasn’t ready. There were many financial and practical reasons why continuing to live in the villa that belonged to her and my late father down in Florida wasn’t an option, but she continued to dig her heels fiercely deep in denial until she finally accepted her new reality and agreed to move.
The next sobering wakeup call was my mother’s disdain for her first apartment, a ground floor one-bedroom in Lexington, Massachusetts, near the Revolutionary War battleground famous for the shot heard around the world. I was excited about it, not just because of its historical surroundings, but because it was literally a stone’s throw away from a food store and hair salon and it was a quick drive from downtown Boston.
My mother had boasted about being a city girl, born in Queens and raised in all its neighboring boroughs, and she claimed she wouldn’t settle for living anywhere but in the city when she moved. Given how vulnerable and dependent she had become just in the months that lapsed since my father’s death, we knew her “Carrie from Sex in the City” dream was just as unrealistic and impractical as her moving into a rent-controlled three-bedroom on Pluto. And so, we worked hard to convince her that Lexington would be a reasonable compromise that came with perks the city didn’t have, like being able to park your car without having a stroke, having your rent get you more than the equivalent of a closet minus utilities, and not needing to hike to a nearby laundromat.
“So, what do you think, Ma?” I asked after she arrived and started slowly moving toward her new digs with her swollen legs that had been in a cramped moving van for many hours. She couldn’t see the place in person ahead of time because of restrictions having to do with the Covid pandemic and had only seen photos of it online. “Do you like it?”
“Not really,” she said, along with an edgy chuckle.
“Not really” was the general, discontented vibe that followed for the next several years, although reassuringly sprinkled with outbursts of gratitude and even the occasional high praise in the form of “You’ve been wonderful” and “You are keeping me alive.” To say it was all or none with my mother would be a bald-faced lie, as both the life she lived, and the person she was, had many endearing and — at the same time — provocative layers. I suppose the same could be said about most of us.
The Lexington apartment was at best a placeholder, just something to get her up from the palm trees to the pines, as well as all her belongings, an abundant enough amassment to fill a palace or two. I knew it was difficult in those early days for my mother to mask her misery, having first lost her husband and then her beloved Florida and spacious villa. But I also knew how difficult it was for us to bear the brunt of her unhappiness, and this very noxious and corrosive mix would on occasion wreak havoc like a methamphetamine lab explosion.
“Get out of my apartment!” she screamed at my husband one evening, after we tried — and failed — to set up her huge antique doll collection to her liking. It was also after we tried — and failed — to find space for the furniture that fit well in a villa that was twice the size of her current apartment. She complained it looked more like a storage unit than an apartment, and she had been barking orders like a drill sergeant with an air of entitlement that made Veruca Salt look like Joan of Arc. The final straw that made my husband say something was when she criticized how our daughter, Emily, was displaying her individually wrapped nesting dolls. Both he and Emily left, and I started to follow.
“Don’t go,” she said, gesturing for me to come back inside. “Come back, let’s talk.”
I hesitantly complied and sat down in a chair across from her.
“I don’t want to be here,” she said. “I miss Florida.”
“But you can’t live in Florida, Mom. We talked about this I don’t know how many times.”
“I don’t care,” she said.
I stood and started to walk out the door again.
“Don’t go,” she said, gesturing again. “Please come back.”
I turned around and sat back down.
“I really don’t want to be here,” she said.
“Mom, do you realize how that makes me feel when you say that?”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I miss Florida.”
“You miss Florida from like fifteen years ago. Before Dad got sick. Before you moved from Pine Ridge to Cypress Lakes and lost touch with most of your friends.”
She was quiet.
“You have us up here. You wouldn’t have us in Florida.”
“I don’t want to be here,” she said. “I feel like a prisoner.”
I stood up. “So go back down to Florida, Ma. We’ll make the arrangements.” I began walking toward the door.
“Don’t go,” she said, waving her hand for me to sit. “Please let’s talk.”
“I don’t know what there is to talk about, Mom. It makes me feel unloved when you say what you’re saying. We worked very hard to get you up here.”
The pushing and pulling went on for another few minutes, with my mother lamenting, tormenting and relenting and my blood pressure soaring. While things quieted down enough for me to finally leave her apartment in peace and join my family outside, this same dynamic continued for the next few years, during which time I tried to exert dominion over emotions that ranged from unconditional love to unmitigated rancor.
My mother chalked it up to us just getting used to each other. I agreed that this may have been part of it, but I also remembered a fair amount of barroom brawl-style upheavals between my father and her over the years. While I didn’t exactly have the patience of an angel or solidity of a stoic, I knew my mother’s demanding and difficult nature would make for a rocky ride.
The fantasy I had of her using a personal pushcart and doing her own food shopping quickly evaporated when it became clear that she didn’t know where the food store was, despite it being so close that we could literally pucker our lips and send a flying spitball that could land on the back of it. I tried surprising her one day with a bag of groceries, which I thought she would be grateful for. Instead, I was greeted with some foaming at the mouth and “Oh, Ellen... This isn’t what I want. I like coffee ice cream, not vanilla.” Her lips took on the shape lips do when the person is really pissed off. “And I don’t like this brand of chips. Next time don’t do this, OK? Wait until I make a list and then go to the store.” Of course, I walked out in a huff, as what I thought was a good deed had indeed not gone unpunished.
The Lexington apartment came not only with WiFi but also — according to my mother — an “inconsiderate asshole who stomped around in what must have been army boots at all hours of the night and when the hell did the schmuck ever sleep.” My mother complained about this person, whom we learned was a physician, every time I spoke with her on the phone or visited. We left little notes — at her insistence — on the upstairs neighbor’s door and even talked with him in person about her complaints. He was very nice and accommodating and promised us that he would try to walk more gently around his apartment, especially late at night.
However, my mother’s complaints continued, and her neighbor’s patience gradually wore thin and to the point of him telling us that he was trying his best to be quiet and politely suggesting that perhaps it was my mother that had the problem. All this weighed into our decision to find her another place to live, one that was considerably closer, since we were growing weary of driving an hour to and from her apartment multiple times a week to retrieve misplaced glasses or to find the television remote or fix her television, which wasn’t turning on because she’d hit something she shouldn’t have. We also held out hope that another place might be less lonely for her, as all Lexington offered was one elderly woman whose husband was in a nursing home and whom my mother swore was a “weirdo” as well as a raging antisemite.
We moved her into a one-bedroom, third floor apartment that was around a five-minute drive from us, in Westford, a neighboring town. We experienced a bit of déjà vu, with more antique doll-related drama and hysteria that this time featured my husband accidentally breaking a glass shelf in the antique doll hutch during the move that he tried to replace as quickly as he could.
Unlike her last apartment, my husband wasn’t forcibly expelled from this one, but the glass plate nonetheless was recalled by my mother multiple times as being irresponsibly and unforgivingly left broken and this led to a few heated arguments months later between my husband and her. The good news was that between a decent amount of downsizing of her stuff, a sizeable walk-in closet for her extensive wardrobe and pocketbook collection, brighter light, and more space in general for her furniture, she seemed much happier with her new surroundings.
All was good and we were collectively breathing a sigh of relief and rejoicing when our hopes and dreams were suddenly dashed by the emergence of yet another “inconsiderate asshole” on the floor above who — according to my mother — sounded like he/she was dropping bowling balls all hours of the day and night and it was so loud that she couldn’t hear her television. And even more alarming was that there was — again according to my mother — a “clueless schmuck” living on the floor below her supposedly playing music at all hours of the day and night and it was keeping her awake at night.
When I visited her, she would interrupt our conversations, point upward toward the ceiling and say to me: “Do you hear that?” Then she would scream, “Knock it off!” on the top of her lungs. During those nights when my brother or I would sleep over, we would often be awakened by her yelling from her bedroom, “Shut the hell up!”
I took my mother to see the front office manager a couple of times, where she broke down in tears and complained about noises coming from upstairs, or perhaps downstairs, and she wasn’t really sure, but it was really goddamned disturbing wherever it was coming from and she needed something to be done right away because this was no way for a human being to live.
In addition to the apartment manager circulating a threatening notice to everyone within range of my mother’s apartment, I even called a non-emergency police line to see what could be done to put an end to what was making it hard for anyone in my mother’s world to get a good night’s sleep. Sadly, despite a village effort to get all the assholes and schmucks to surrender their garbage pail lids and buzz saws, the noises and my mother’s complaints continued. Desperate pleas for her to consider cotton balls in her ears or white noise were vehemently rejected, and so we prepared ourselves to accept our new reality: Mama wasn’t happy and, therefore, nobody was happy.
But the truth was, my mother was as complex as the life she insisted on making for herself, and for every shitty eye-rolling “Here we go again!” moment we had with her, there were also the five or six-hour long Scrabble tournaments that she kept driving with a grinning and breathy “One more!” And her exclamations when we went out to a restaurant for dinner about how delicious the food was, and her appreciation of the pleasant drives I would take her on while listening to her favorite Neil Diamond music, and the thumbs-up signal she gave with a big smile in photos of her enjoying her meals.
She was a good sport anytime I’d push her in her transport chair down a ramp or hill and momentarily lose control, causing her to scream. There were the many conversations we had, about her friends and who she was still gratefully in touch with and those who had disappeared without a trace and had broken her heart.
She talked about missing my father, and she talked candidly about her complicated relationship with her own father, who she realized she loved but didn’t really like. She often asked me to fill her in on the latest that was happening with certain drama-queen friends, and she never got tired of listening, and she did it, for the most part, without judgment.
My mother ended up going through a revolving door of doctors, starting with my personal Boston-based oncologist, whose limited patience with her curmudgeonly ways caused some friction. Because we were late for an appointment one day, he had made us wait an extra 3-4 hours until his last scheduled appointment. He was sitting at a computer in a room across the hall from us and undoubtedly heard my mother loudly ask, “What the hell is taking him so fucking long?” and “By the time he sees us, it’ll be time for dinner.”
When he finally came into our room, he unleashed a few demeaning remarks about us being late, although I had personally believed that we had sufficiently paid our dues by sitting so long, my and my mother’s asses had become fused to our seats. Later when we were heading to my car, she confessed that she didn’t think he liked her very much. I just drove us quietly home with a knot in my stomach.
Copyright © 2025 by Ellen Weisberg
