Happy Birthday, Mom

Today my wonderful mother would have turned 95. Or maybe not -- we learned a few years before her death, that her birthday may have been April 11. Wifey and I were taking her to see an oncologist because of Kaposi's sarcoma, a slow growing cancer common among the very old. We avoided the C word -- we told her the doc was a "Leg specialist" who was examining the bruises she had...She bought it, especially as we kept turning her head away from the office signs that said "oncology." Sure enough, she died WITH the kaposi's, not of it. Anyway, the office said there was a problem with her Medicare -- the date of birth was off. When we asked Mom -- she said she knew her birthday might not be the 13th -- but 13 was always her lucky number -- so that was it. In any event, April 13, 1920 was it -- we continued to celebrate that day with her... As Wifey and I deal with parental aging, as do many of our friends, I always go to the default position that my Mom was great until 89 -- after that, her life quality declined, and it was more of maintaining a failing person. But my sister of another mother Mirta calls me on that. She visited Sunny weekly for the last 11 months of her life -- and sat vigil at her bed side as she passed. Mirta tells me my mother taught her more about being happy in those final 11 months in a nursing home than any other person she's met. Mirta feels her becoming friends with Sunny was sacred. So that just shows how wrong I am... When Mom turned 80, I took my whole family, and older sister and younger sister and her sons, to San Francisco to celebrate. On the AA flight over, I mentioned the purpose of our trip to a flight attendant, and, sure enough, the captain's voice boomed over the PA "From the flight deck, American Airlines wishes a very happy 80th birthday to Mrs. Sunny Auslander." Mom beamed -- and the trip was sterling -- wine country, Alcatraz, great restaurants except for a runs inducing visit to Chinatown. My nephew Henry so fell in love with SF he decided to attend college there -- and still makes his home in the Bay Area... At 85, I took everyone to LA -- the place Mom married my father during WW II. It was another fine trip -- we ended up standing at a building on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena -- a GAP store. We looked down and saw it was the Wall Drug Store -- the place Mom got coffee each am before she took a trolley to CalTech, where she was the Dean's secretary. During the visit, my old law school friend Cheryl, who married a fellow, Neal, who became THE music producer in LA, invited us over. Mom took a scary fall -- though luckily no fractures. It taught us her traveling days were over. But I'm so glad we took those trips... Mom turned 93, and was in obvious decline at the pizza party we threw for her at MJH. She raised her soda glass in a toast and wished eveyone a happy new year. 10 days later, she was mostly asleep, but fitfully so. We brought in hospice, to ease her discomfort. 2 weeks to the day following her birthday, she passed, quietly. My sisters were lucky -- they last saw her up and alive. The final days were sad. My brother of another mother Barry wished to visit. It turned out he came on the day she died. Wifey's BFF Edna was also in town. We were all together in Mom's room when the man from the funeral home came. He was a burly black fellow -- Mom was so tiny at the end, he had no problem with his task... Afterwards we met at Soyka -- our go-to place near MJH. D1 came by. We toasted Sunny and told tales of her life -- all funny and love filled. I'm not sure about any after life thing, but if there is one, Sunny and her beloved Hy are together. I know they're smiling together. Happy 95th, you beautiful, loving lady. You were my first girl and will always be in my heart.