4:02 p.m. - 2003-03-13
The oldest woman I know
Last week was bad.
I have probably mentioned her in passing, but there is a woman that we know named Jane. She was our next-door neighbor before I was born, in a house she still occupies in New Rochelle. Jane has a cat named Smoky (the characters Ethel and Bunny in this story are very, very loosely based on them, but, y'know, evil versions). Here's one interview with her, but none can fully convey her achievements. She is the most remarkable woman I know. She still drives into NYC every day, and... her ninety-fifth birthday was last October. Yes, ninety-fifth.
Last Saturday, Jane didn't feel well. By Sunday, she was in the emergency room.
On Sunday, Dad left for a week in Europe.
Mom was in the hospital for hours every day. On Monday, they put Jane on a respirator. Jane wrote Mom a note saying that she wanted to be OFF the respirator, even if she died.
She managed to breathe off the respirator.
Three heart attacks later, on Wednesday, she was transferred to a different hospital for angioplasty. The surgeon didn't want to do the operation, because he was worried she wouldn't survive due to her age. Without the operation, he said she would die within 24 hours; but he said the operation was just too risky. Jane's taken risks her whole life, and she decided to take another.
She made it.
On Thursday she was transferred to a regular unit. She told Mom all the details for what she would want at her funeral, who she wants to speak. She gave Mom her address book and a list of people to call and what Mom could and could not tell them. She was always lucid. Mom got all her mail and they went through it together; Mom wrote checks, and Jane signed them all. Jane is obstinate. She's in pain, but she's fighting.
But her condition keeps fluctuating. She's still in the hospital. No one knows if she'll make it.
You have to admire her.
And I want her out of her pain, but I also know that this would be a terrible way for her to go. She says she has no regrets, that she just wishes she'd gotten her papers and such in order.
No regrets. Remarkable.
She loved someone, once. But he was Catholic and she was Jewish and they were unable to reconcile that; she would have wanted to raise her children Jewish. After that she never married. She had her cats and her boat and her work. She had friends, but mainly through her work; she was not the easiest persun to get along with, and she outlived most of her generation. She's prickly and ornery, and I remember many times when she said things at dinner we found dismissive or snippy. She used to come for dinner every Shabbat until recently, when it was too hard for her to get up the stairs and then make it to services afterward at temple. She was just too tired.
I don't know what will happen.
I was going to write about some good things that have happened in the last two days. I was really happy today, but I just had a discussion with my parents and am now in tears. Maybe I'll write about it later. Maybe I'll go listen to AFI and play with shards of glass.
That sounds like a better idea.
