My father-in-law, Pa, who had been helpless for years, was in
the hospital.
I had stayed for the night because he was very nervous. I
stood at his bedside, rearranging the bedclothes and
reassuring him in a droning, hypnotic chant that everything
was fine, that he was going to be well, that in just a few
more days he would be going back home again.
The man in the next bed had suffered a heart attack. A
college boy came to sit at his bedside every night and left
early in the morning.
The boy never said a word to him or to anyone else in the
room, responding only when he was spoken to. He studied his
textbooks most of the time by the light of a small
flashlight.
At about eleven, a well-dressed middle-aged couple entered,
and quietly approached the next bed. There were whispered
greetings, after which the woman said good-bye and went out
to wait in the hall while her husband, who was obviously the
man's son, spoke to his father for another few minutes, said
a few words to the boy who sat there, and left.
For some reason, the scene, which had taken no more than ten
minutes, shook me up. Everything was so polite, so
sophisticated, so lacking in concern and warmth. A father was
ill and in the hospital, you arranged for someone to stay
with him for a fee, paid him a visit and continued on with
your own life.
Why couldn't I erase the incident from my memory? Why did it
keep coming back? To taunt me, to jeer at me, to tell me that
I was a fool in the same time that I kept telling myself in a
fury that those people who had just come and gone weren't
human. That they were sophisticated machines masquerading
like people who went through the sophisticated motions of
living without feeling a thing.
I asked myself a simple question: "What did Hashem expect
from children when a parent was sick and helpless?"
I suddenly realized that I really didn't know the answer to
that question.
The next time my sister called, I asked her how the Jewish
community in America related to that question. She was silent
on the line for several moments and then told me that with
people living longer today than ever before, our generation
was faced with problems that never existed in previous
generations. Old Age Homes had become a thriving Big Business
in America, but many orthodox families were reluctant, also
ashamed, to put their parents in such places, and ultimately
found themselves carrying a burden that they began to
resent.
Jewish journals were full of the problem, with controversy
raging over how much, according to Jewish law, one is
obligated to do. But even after all the talk and arguments,
one was still not left with clear guidelines. In the very
heart of Monsey, an affluent community, my sister knew of
five families which, since bringing their elderly, ailing
parents to live with them, were literally going crazy. Seeing
this, other good people faced with this problem, who wanted
to do the right thing, were really in a dilemma.
About that time, my friend Zlata came to visit. She told me
of a neighbor in America who had recently lost her father.
He'd been old and ailing for many years, during which time
she'd kept him in her home and had cared for him to the
exclusion of everything else.
When he died, Zlata said, the woman was bitter and angry that
her father had stolen the best years of her life. She swore
that she'd never allow her children to do the same for
her.
I suddenly found myself struggling with conflicting feelings
on the issue and realized that I needed help sorting them
out.
The religious woman psychologist that I spoke to listened
quietly as I described the situation. When I finished, she
looked at me and said, "Your father-in- law is not your
responsibility. He is being cared for to a reasonable extent
and you must stop going to him."
"But he can't be alone for even a minute!" I tried to
explain.
"Nonsense," she insisted. "Forget about your father-in- law
and start living for yourself. I guarantee that nothing will
happen to him."
I stopped going to the psychologist and continued going to my
father-in-law; the same unsettling, opposing images and
thoughts still colliding in my head as I ran back and forth
to the home, out of breath and gasping (which, I learned
later, was due to an undiagnosed case of asthma and not to
the heat. Why the asthma is another question which might
bring us right back to my anxiety and guilt feelings . . .
).
As time when on, though, I found that the best way for me not
to resent my total involvement with my father-in- law was by
pampering myself, too.
I joined a group of women who taxied down to a secluded Tel
Aviv beach early every morning to swim in the Mediterranean.
I studied shaitsu. I attended as many shiurim as I
could. I took a home-study course to get the degree I'd
always wanted.
In time, I found that doing for myself gave me the balance
that was necessary to prevent me from resenting my excessive
feeling of responsibility for Pa.
It was only afterwards that I realized that I had actually
done what that woman psychologist had told me to do. Well,
not exactly everything. Half had been enough to make the
whole difference.
Editor's Note: Every patient and every carer is different
and caution must be taken in drawing lessons from the
experience of others. The problems involved in caring for all
people are difficult, deep and complex. Sometimes there can
be unrecognized halachic problems. We recommend consulting a
rov for halachic clarifications as well as for general
advice.
