A Blessing and a Curse: In Memory of my Mom

In loving memory of Debbie Arntz

April 6, 1945-December 21, 2024

The two phrases you hear when you lose someone, at least in the US, are "Sorry for your loss" and "May their memory be a blessing." The two phrases are diametrically and not dialectically opposed. The first emphasizes absence, the living person that is gone, while the second emphasizes presence, the memories that remain. The first of these phrases are more common, more generic, while the second is more often heard from Jewish friends, at least in my experience, and is a translation of the Hebrew "zichrona livricha." The second has begun to be used more widely, either in act of cultural appropriation or cultural tribute.  I have always thought it to be the better of the two phrases.

Now that my mother has passed I find myself wondering how do memories become blessings. Right now every memory seems to be more like a curse. I will see something that reminds me of my mom, and I will  break down in tears thinking of what I loss. I have been trying to think about those things of my mother that I would like to live on, that would continue, that should become blessings. 

My mother was a joyful and optimistic person. It is easy to dismiss this, during much of my adolescence my mother ran a day care center in Cleveland Heights. Sometimes her cheer and optimism just seemed to be an extension of that, she seemed permanently on in Romper Room mode, just like years of working with children had taught her to never swear, shouting "fudge" when someone cut her off in traffic. She hated it when people dismissed her for being optimistic and cheerful. Once a coworker called her a Pollyanna, and it made her mad enough to actually swear. I have gradually come to the conclusion that my mother's optimism was hard won, and a conscious struggle. I am not going to air too much of my extended family's dirty laundry here, but my mother came from a home in which spite and anger were more common than joy. Being joyful was a kind of victory, if not a battle over darkness in her past. In many ways this joyful outlook served my mother well. She was completely incapable of being caught up in the mediated spite and anger that engulfed much of her generation. It had its limits as well. My mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2008. She struggled with acceptance of this diagnosis even as the disease consumed more of her life, looking for a bright side that wasn't there. 

My mother was passionate about justice and fairness. My mother had a righteous anger that was something to see. I remember as a kid my mother storming into the police station in Shaker Heights to contest a parking ticket. Fun fact: Shaker Heights police station was bombed in 1970.  The station that replaced it was built more like a bunker than a suburban police headquarters, all bullet proof glass and reinforced doors. When my mother stormed in I was convinced that she would be dragged behind one of those reinforced doors and disappearing forever. I just did not think that one could yell at a cop and get away with it. My mother had a long history of standing up to wrongs, of writing letters to corporations or government offices that she felt had wronged her. These letters did not always amount to anything, but when my mother saw a wrong she had to say something. She hated U2 not for their music, but because she ended up with a album she did not want and couldn't figure out how to get rid of. Like I said, my mom did not swear much, but she cursed Bono's name many times for imposing his music on her every time she opened her iphone. This righteous anger was not only about her. She was just as concerned for others. One night a cancelled flight left her and a bunch of other people stranded in Newark airport overnight. As uncomfortable as this left her, what really made her angry was that a mother and her small children were left to spend the light in a cold airport as well. My mother not only spoke about helping others, she did it. When one of my high school friends had a falling out with his parents, and was kicked out of his house, it was my mother who gave him a place to stay, making the basement into a room for him until he could get back on his feet. This was the sort of thing that she talked about doing, but I was almost surprised when she did it. 

My mother was part of a community. All of my mother's careers from art teacher and daycare director to advocate for housing for the elderly were aimed at serving the community. This idea of community did not just define her professional life but her personal life as well. My mother volunteered a lot, wherever she saw a need. Often this meant writing and editing various newsletters for organizations including the retirement community where she lived for the last thirteen years of her life. Writing and editing the newsletter is a thankless job; people notice the mistakes, you get the bocce league playoff schedule wrong or forget to include details from someone's memorial section, but almost no one credits you when it comes out on time. The community newsletter was delivered by another man in the community, Keith. Keith delivered newsletters whenever he felt like it, and was unreliable by nature. My mother was the public face of the newsletter so all complaints were aimed at her. Keith and my mother did not get along. There is more to this story and some of it involves the spite and anger from my mother's own family, but I am not going into that. Suffice to say there was a lot of bad blood between the two. Then Keith died. My mother did what she always did when someone in the community died, talked to their friends and family and wrote a memorial page. She did this for Keith, no mention of their conflicts, of the fact that he was a dick to her, it was a glowing tribute. I was visiting when the issue of the newsletter came out. Someone related to Keith, I forget who, came up to my mom with a stunned look on her face, thanking my mother for writing such a beautiful tribute for Keith. My mother then turned to me and said, "Why was she so surprised? Did she expect me to write something nasty to get revenge?" I said, "Yes, because they would have." My mother just said, "I couldn't." She couldn't. She had to do the caring thing, the fair thing, because that is who she was.

Of course, I am my mother's son, and I am biased, to use the parlance of our times. I saw the best in her just as see saw the best in me. However, I don't think that all of what I wrote here stem from the partial nature of my perspective. Which is why I will end with one last anecdote. In 2019 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatment would involve surgery and six months of extensive chemotherapy involving daily trips to a hospital. When word of this spread to community a group of people stepped up to volunteer to drive her to appointments, to help with household tasks. In early 2020 my mother was declared cancer free. She held a party to thank everyone who helped her. The photo above is the picture from the party, and it is as good of a memorial as any, a testament to a person who brought joy, fairness, and  a sense of community to everything she did. 

My mother had other positive qualities she was creative, funny, and generous, and of course she had negative ones as well, she was a human being after all. These are the memories that I am trying to make into blessings. One of the last things I said to my mom, when I visited her during those last few days of her life was "anything about me that is kind or caring I learned from you, thank you for all that you taught me." This is my attempt to put some of those lessons into words.