The rain set the mood as I helped to pack up my mother’s beautiful possessions and move them into her companion’s house in Connecticut. Stoically, my mother performed the perfunctory tasks needed to move out of her beloved home and I immersed myself into her world trying to be on my best behavior, accepting her fate and her decisions.

She walked me around her place saying goodbye to her view of the mist clinging to the distant hills and the tree that  cast shadows throughout the day into her office. She showed me her favorite garden path with the Bleeding Hearts, a metaphor for her life at the moment.

The days were busy with the phones and doorbells ringing off the hook. Everything had the same ring, I would answer the door when her phone rang and pick up her phone when the doorbell rang. I jumped every time the disorganized mover  irritatingly yelled out “MAAAM” to get my mother’s attention and was glad that I was there to soften the harshness of it all.

Tutti, my mother’s cousin, religiously arrived every day to herd my mother through the move and keep her organized.  They worked beside each other resorting back to the German language of their youth. Tutti would look at me with her glasses low on her face and tell me to stop Schnubbling, which I learned is the German word for mumbling. My eyes would open wide when they would announce that it was time for a Mukke Fukk, which innocently meant to reheat coffee. I felt like I was in a surreal movie as the week intricately wove the past into the present, reminding me of the importance of family.

To add to the insanity, there was Hank, my mother’s “fix it” man for the past thirty years, who revealed that he had had a thing for me ever since I was a teenager. He would lurk near me, as I unpacked boxes, making lewd comments and grabbing me every now and then to kiss me on the cheek, apologizing that he couldn’t help himself.

Hank is a true testament to my mother’s loyalty and generosity. She kept employing him even after she walked in on him committing adultery in her bed. My mother was never one to follow conventional ways, always taking in the black sheep that would baaa at her door.

On the final evening I sat in the kitchen amongst heaps of boxes and furniture, opened a congratulatory bottle of wine and  proceeded to polish it off. Hank’s son sat with me and told me how he had applied a sheet of sinister tattoos on both arms after the mother of his child left him. I preached to him about how he needed to take better care of himself and tried to convince him to take up Bikram’s yoga to cleanse his unhealthy colon.

I had never seen my mother so completely emotionally and physically exhausted but we couldn’t leave until the movers found their paper work, which had mysteriously disappeared. We all whispered about their incompetence as they drove back and forth between houses searching for it. All eyes fell on me, buzzed and happy, when it was revealed that I had been the culprit who had moved the papers to my mother’s office in my relentless attempt to keep her organized.

Waking my mother up at 5:30am this morning, I worried that the move and her exhaustion would age her. I wanted to stay and make her laugh and let her know that all would be okay, and less overwhelming soon, but I had to return to my family.

This week has not only given me a newly found wisdom explaining the roots of my dysfunctional habits but it has also given me a sense of peace that I was able to be with my mother to help get her through a difficult passageway in her life.

In a perfect world, my mother would be living with my sisters and I so that we could ensure a healthy, happy existence for her. She is not ready for that yet, and so we will witness from a distance, all of the transitions that will occur in her life and until she comes home to us she is in Tutti’s care.

Family is everything.

I got a phone call a few weeks ago from an old time family friend. “Jillian, I’m worried about your motha”, she said with her thick Bostonian accent. “She needs you and it has to be you. You are the one who can help her move out of her place and give her good advice about what to do with her life.” I booked myself on a flight that evening.

So today I am on my way to Hartford, Connecticut, for five days, to help me beloved mum move out of her happy little nest. I left the boys skateboarding up and down their grand parents concrete driveway in Denver, much more fun than the gravel driveway that we have at home. As I drove away to the airport I looked back at the mass of equipment that I had left for them which was now cluttering my in-laws foyer. “Have fun”, I yelled out the window.

It is a completely different experience traveling without the boys. I sat in the sixth row on both flights, a luxury saved for the people who don’t have children. How nice to not have to inhale the bathroom fumes. Maybe I should tell the airlines that once children are four and older they can actually be pleasant to sit near. No doubt, they are a whole lot more enjoyable than sitting next to an enormous, smelly adult whose sweaty arm keeps rubbing against you.

Moving up in the plane does not, however, change your status. The snotty, lazy stewardesses still treat you like a low life economy passenger. I have grown to really despise them as they role their eyes at you for making any request. I especially love it when I order my special drink that I, for some odd reason, only order on airplanes. “I’ll have a cranberry juice with seltzer water and no ice”, I order. With complete annoyance they hand me a plastic cup with ice and two cans, one of seltzer and one of cranberry juice. I wait until they get it right which inevitably starts a war. Ok, maybe I’m partially at fault.

When we arrived into Philadelphia I asked the stewardess if she could please hold up the passengers departing the plane, so that I could get my bag in the overhead department and make my flight, which was in a different, far away, terminal and departing in fifteen minutes. She told me to just muscle my way back to the bag amidst the upstream traffic. “I’m confused”, I said. “I thought your job was to help people”. She responded by telling me that she was helping me by telling me what to do. I did as she recommended by putting out my horns and charging my way back to my bag, bumping into anybody who didn’t get out of my way. I was no way in hell going to hang out any longer than I needed to in the Philadelphia airport. Puffing heavily through my nose, as usual, I got my bag and exited quickly giving the matador the dirty eye. Ole!

As I ran to my next flight, I decided that I would try to avoid ever flying through Philadelphia again. It was a depressing, dirty, crowded airport. I caught my plane and proceeded to sit on the runway for another two hours while waiting for the other planes before us to take off. The stewardess informed us that this was a common occurrence in Phillie, thus reaffirming my desire to stay away in the future.

We descended into another dark turbulent sky and as the landing gear clunked down, the older German woman sitting next to me said, “I sink zer are maintenance issues vis dis plane.”

Driving back on highway 91 brought back a flood of memories from my childhood. It  saddened me that my home that I grew up in was gone and now my mother’s new home as well. I would never enjoy those warm summer June evenings again as I did when I was a child. The lush and abundant trees alongside the highway had not been cut down for development and it was all so green. We watched as the last colors of the day set behind the hills and listened to the frogs croaking away, or at least I knew they were frogs, my mother thought that they were late night geese croaking, she and Wade constantly surprise me when it comes to naming the creatures in nature.

Tomorrow I will put on my Superhero cape, inhale a lot of Advil and get to work. I hope that I do not plunge into a depression while, once again, packing up my mother’s belongings. I can only hope that her new home will be as beautiful and peaceful as it is here. There is still so much to do before she closes on Friday and I am glad that I am here for her. I must remain strong, after all, that is what daughters are for. To  show our love in any way that we can and help our parents when they need us.

Much to my regret, my family, my sisters, my mother, my aunts and the Queen of Holland are being recognized all over the world thanks to Bernard Madoff who made-off with our money.

Everywhere I turn there are sympathetic people offering their condolences. They are sorry that my family is suffering an injustice. I look at them and smile and wait for comments to sink in like, “it is not right that society thinks it is okay to be a voyeur in other people’s private lives.”   I wait longer and find myself making assumptions about their thoughts, “I didn’t know she was part of that wealthy Jewish society that got suckered by a fellow member of the tribe. Why does she still look happy? Would a person who thinks that she is a Princess be offended if I invited her to live in our basement if she loses her house? I really should help out with the kids, make them dinner and send them some money.” Wait, that was me trying to infuse my thoughts back into their sympathetic brains.

Growing up, my two sisters and I endured endless lectures from our father as he attempted to train us on the importance of a secure financial future. He was obsessive about making the most of his hard- earned money and build upon the savings that he and my mother had inherited from their hard-working parents who had lost their family and everything they had owned in the Holocaust. With sheer determination my grandfather started from nothing and built a shoe manufacturing business in England. It was my father’s life-long ambition to ensure that he was doing his part to add to that legacy.

We would hear him from afar stating that he was going for a walk and we would scatter. Inevitably, he would seek one of us out and demand that he be accompanied. Our eyes would roll back into our heads as he would talk stock market jargon and finance. If only he had an interpreter to explain things to us in laymen terms, we might not have immediately zoned out and missed so many opportunities for valuable advice! Capturing us in the zone, he would irritatingly tell us to make sure we landed where we took off from. He took pride in the fact that all of his research and connections led him to Bernard Madoff who was bringing in a consistent and solid return.  In 1997, my father passed away from Melanoma, convinced that he had done well for his wife and children.

It is very surreal for my husband, Wade, and I to become part of the stereotype connected to the Ponzi scheme victims. It is also maddening to read the comments stating that people were greedy or stupid to invest with Madoff. Greedy? Is it greedy to try to make the most out of your money? Investigating and trusting a highly reputable investment firm is not greedy behavior. We thought that we were safely saving for our future. Were we stupid for not diligently following the proper steps to check up on Madoff? We were following some of the most brilliant people in the world who had also invested with Madoff. We felt secure in doing the same.

Like the other victims we have been reading about in the papers, we have no idea how this devastating situation will be resolved. When my four year old overheard Wade and I talking about how Madoff was going to jail, he quietly and sadly asked why Rudolph was going to prison.

My family and I have been laughing hard a lot together lately. We are living month to month, hanging on by a thread and our thermostats are on 60. In the mornings we all converge in the kitchen dawning our hats, huge Quicksilver sweaters and slippers. We look like some sort of rock band.

Our values and our priorities have been set straight. We will build a finer future for ourselves and for our children. We are trying not to harbor bitter thoughts, but we wish Bernard Madoff Bon Voyage on his way to prison.

My mother’s parents.