Funeral/Shiva Info Updated

Hi all. Just wanted to say that the funeral and shiva info has now been updated on the google doc. Note the new location on Monday might and the earlier timing on Tuesday and Wednesday in hopes that we can meet in our backyard before it gets to dark. See below for details or click on this Google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-QtRBxyVP3qsrQ-nUnahJapcRZgu_U1kVA3MuIJ_p7Y/edit?usp=sharing.

• Funeral –
  • When: Monday, 12:30pm 
  • Where:
    • In-Person: Plaza Chapel on 91st and Amsterdam 
    • Online Live Stream: Click here for the link.
• Hybrid Shiva on Monday
  • When: 6-9pm, services at 7pm
  • Where:
    • In-Person: West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave., 69th Street
    • Zoom: Click here for zoom link.
• In-Person Shiva on Tuesday and Wednesday
  • When: 5-8pm with services at 6pm
  • Where: Bograd Klein House, 165 West End Ave, Apt. 3R, New York, NY, 10023.
    • The gathering will be inside and mask-optional-but/encouraged when not eating. For folks that only fee comfortable unmasking outside, there is space for a small number of people in our porch.
• In-Person Shiva Thursday
  • When: Thursday, 6-9pm, services at 7pm
  • Where: Naomi and Ed Robbins, 49 Graphite Dr., Woodland Park, NJ, 07424
• Zoom Shiva 
  • When: Friday, 12-1pm for friends and family, 
  • Where: Zoom link: bit.ly/zoomhbograd
• Havdalah –> Shiva Gathering, 6pm end of Shabbat gathering, 7:45pm Havdalah, 8pm Shiva services, 165 West End Ave., Apt. 3R, but hopefully in the backyard behind the building for COVID safety.
• Gatherings for Margie – TBD post-Rosh Hashanah, in Boston and on Zoom
• Kulanu Memorial on Zoom – TBD, in a few weeks.
• Much love,
• Margie

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Zichrona Livracha – May Her Memory Be a Blessing

Friends and Family,

My mom passed away peacefully around 1am last night/this morning, with my dad by her side and holding her hand. Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet / Blessed is the True Judge.

Funeral and Shiva Details

I will share more in a moment, but first: Click here for a google doc with all the funeral and shiva details, which you are welcome to share with people who knew my mom. That google doc will be updated continually and will soon include zoom info and day-of contact numbers. Key things to know:

• Funeral –
  • When: Monday, 12:30pm
  • Where:
    • In-Person: Plaza Chapel on 91st and Amsterdam
    • Online Live Stream: Click here for the link.
• Hybrid Shiva on Monday
  • When: 6-9pm, services at 7pm
  • Where:
    • In-Person: West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave., 69th Street
    • Zoom: Click here for zoom link.
• In-Person Shiva Tuesday-Wednesday
  • When: 5-8pm with services at 6pm
  • Where: Bograd Klein House, 165 West End Ave, Apt. 3R, New York, NY, 10023.
    • The gathering will be inside and mask-optional-but encouraged when not eating. For anyone concerned about unmasking indoors, there will be some space for people to eat outdoors on our porch.
• In-Person Shiva Thursday
  • When: Thursday, 6-9pm, services at 7pm
  • Where: Naomi and Ed Robbins, 49 Graphite Dr., Woodland Park, NJ, 07424
• Zoom Shiva
  • When: Friday, 12-1pm for friends and family,
  • Where: Zoom link: bit.ly/zoomhbograd
• Havdalah –> Shiva Gathering, 6pm end of Shabbat gathering, 7:45pm Havdalah, 8pm Shiva services, 165 West End Ave., Apt. 3R, but hopefully in the backyard behind the building for COVID safety.
• Gatherings for Margie – TBD post-Rosh Hashanah, in Boston and on Zoom
• Kulanu Memorial on Zoom – TBD, in a few weeks.

Saying Goodbye

Jeremy and the kids arrived around 5pm, as did my Aunt Naomi (my mom’s sister) and my Uncle Eddie. Jeremy, Aunt Naomi, my dad, and I each took time to say goodbye to my mom. We also had Uriel and Raziel call me from down the hall, and say goodbye to my mom on speaker phone. I guided the kids to find ways to say their versions of thank you, I’m sorry, I forgive you, and I love you, as I’ve been taught through my chaplaincy training. My favorite part was when Uriel said, “Grandma, I’m sorry for anything I have done to hurt you. I know that sometimes I have paid more attention to Papa than to you because he is so silly, and I am so sorry if that hurt your feelings. But I have always loved you too and I always will.” Raziel chimed in, “Amen!”

After the goodbyes, my dad and I stayed while the nurses removed my mom’s breathing tube. My dad and I then sang to my mom and cried together, before returning to our sweet Shabbat dinner down the hall.

Final Blessings

When it came time to bless the children, my dad and I realized that this was my last chance for my parents to bless me together, a ritual they have barely ever missed in my entire life. Whether I’ve been in Israel, India, Peru, Ghana, or traveling the US for my organizing, or whether my parents were home or traveling the globe, we always make sure to find a phone to call and connect for this ritual. So after Jeremy and I blessed our kids and we finished the Shabbat prayers, my dad and I went back to my mom’s bedside. There, I placed my mom’s limp hand on my head and my dad put his hands on hers, and my dad blessed me in my mom’s presence one last time.

After they blessed me, we both held her hands, and we sang the vidui, which is traditionally said at a person’s deathbed. Then I sang her the priestly blessing, using the haunting High Holiday melody for “duchaning,” pouring my heart out singing the niggun (wordless melody part) through my tears. Though I did not fully realize it, I think I was singing very loudly, because when we came out, the ultra-orthodox people in the room next door said they had heard our prayer and hoped God had too. They then invited us into their relatives room to pray with us and wish us good shabbos. Even though I often don’t feel so connected with ultra-orthodox people, there was something really beautiful about knowing that we, the inheritors of the same tradition, share enough common experience to come together across our differences to love and support one another in our hardest times. I can’t help but think that my mom was bringing people together in community even in her last moments.

Leaving the Hospital

My dad and I went back to our Shabbat dinner, where we enjoyed the really delicious food prepared by the Satmar chassidim, who apparently just make and donate huge amounts of kosher food to all the hospitals in the area. At the end, Shoshana and Emunah said goodbye to my mom, and then my dad walked them and everyone else out before returning to spend the night in my mom’s room. Once people had left, I stayed another half hour holding my mom’s hand, laying my head on my mom, and crying. Even though the nurses said my mom would probably take several days to pass and encouraged us to go home, I knew this could be goodbye, and struggled to pull myself away.

My Mourning Pilgrimage Through the City

When I finally did leave, and my dad returned to my mom’s side, I spent two hours walking home in a sort of pilgrimage of weeping. Everywhere I went, I thought of new sad things and would cry anew, like the fact that my mom wouldn’t be around to edit my sermons, that she wouldn’t be at my kids’ milestones, that we wouldn’t dance together again, and that she wouldn’t be there to be proud of me in my triumphs or sing our special “You’re a Good Girl, You Are” song when I mess up and feel terrible. I am usually unable to cry in public, and was thankful for my mask and the loud city crowds, which allowed me to be fully immersed in my own experience of grieving and also to feel like part of the fabric of the city.

End of Life

My dad called at 1am to say that after he had sat with her, holding her hand, alternately talking to her and crying, her breathing began to slow down a lot. The nurses came in, and a few moments later she was gone. Of course, we are heartbroken to see her go, but it also felt like an act of mercy for all of us not to have to prolong her dying.

My dad stayed another hour to be with my mom, and then rode along with the hearse to bring my mom’s body to the funeral home. As a testament to the exceptional Susan Schorr and my parents loving community, by the time he got there, their friend Marion Mackles was already there for shmirah, the ritual guarding and accompaniment of a body between death and burial. Susan is organizing people in shifts to do this mitzvah, and if you want to sign up, please contact her at Susan Schorr srschorr@aol.com.

Held by Community and Family

My dad came home around 4:30am, and has been alternating between sleeping and being showered with love ever since. He, Raziel, and I came for the end of services at West End Synagogue, and I was moved to witness how many of the people in the congregation seemed to share our heartbreak. In her introduction to Kaddish, Rabbi Emily took time to remember my mom and to talk about how the whole community was feeling pain and shock at her loss and feeling grateful for the ways that she had welcomed and been kind to so many people in the community. As I looked around, I realized that Rabbi Emily, and the cantor, and maybe half the people there all seemed to be crying, too.

I have sometimes thought about how grief can be deeply isolating, because the mourners are experiencing feelings so different and so much more intense than the rest of the people around them. It is still, of course, different and more intense for her closest people, but it feels really comforting to be in family and community where people don’t only feel bad FOR us, but also WITH us, because they know what a special and inspiring person my mom was.

After synagogue we were grateful for visits from my dad’s sister Aunt Evelyn and her partner Vince, my cousins Stephen and Andrea, and my Aunt Naomi and Uncle Eddy. Our phones have also been ringing and buzzing off the hook with messages of love and condolences.

How to Reach Us

FYI, my mom set up our home phone to forward to her cell phone, now that we have lost our resident technology expert, we have no idea how to fix it. So rather than leaving messages, better to comment here or write to my dad at kenneth.jay.klein@gmail.com and/or margieklein1@gmail.com. Once I have it, I will add a contact number on the funeral and shiva google doc in case people need help finding where to go, etc. (Also, if you know how to fix call-forwarding from a wired phone connected through RCN, let us know!)

Support for the Long-Haul

We hope to see you in the coming week for the funeral and shiva in person or on zoom. Whether or not you can join, know that we will still be grieving even after shiva ends. Hopefully he will come visit family a bunch in Boston and Charlotte, but when he is NYC, please help surround my dad with love and community in the coming months. I imagine my mother piping in here that my dad will need support in making actual social plans and in procuring and eating healthy meals that include vegetables and protein, since she was the social and nutritional planner in chief of the two of them. If you are not sure how, please attempt channel my mom’s signature indefatigability. 🙂

Thank you again for all your support, and for surrounding my family with love, family, and community now and always.

Much love,

Margie

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Preparing to Say Goodbye

Dear friends and family,

Margie here again, with more bad news that I am feeling heartbroken to share. But one of the last communications I had with my mom was a text she wrote reminding me to keep writing in this blog if/when she couldn’t.

MRI Results -> Brain Damage

Yesterday we got the sad results that my mom has had many strokes on both sides of her brain. She has severe brain damage that has affected the part of her brain that controls consciousness. The neurologist told us that it was unlikely she would recover from this state. Even if she could, the best we could hope for is that she would be mildly conscious and able to listen to music. She would never be able to speak or move on her own, and might not understand anything. Even to get to that point would require months and months of being on a being on feeding and tracheotomy tubes.

Honoring My Mother’s Wishes

My mom was very clear that she did not want to be kept alive artificially if there was no hope that she would return to some recognizable version of herself. Though we very much did not want to receive the prognosis we did, we do feel blessed that it made our decisions much less confusing than I had feared. We met with the palliative care doctor and social worker today, and they are going to remove her breathing tube and withdraw artificial life-sustaining measures. Instead, they will focus on keeping her as comfortable as possible and wish as much dignity as can be afforded in this situation.

Holding Vigil

Jeremy and the kids are driving down now, and after he gets a chance to say goodbye, they will remove the breathing tube. The doctors said it could take up to a week for my mom to pass, so my dad and I are going to be holding vigil for her as she transitions from this world.

Shabbat on the ICU Floor

This evening, the incredible staff here have arranged for us all to have Shabbat dinner in the conference room on the ICU floor (the kids will cannot enter my mom’s room). Our dinner will include my dad, Jeremy, my kids, me, and my parents beloved Ugandan housemates Shoshana and Emunah. I am grateful that we will all be together to honor my mom’s life in this hard moment, and to be with my dad even though he did not want to leave the hospital. Because the hospital caters to the Hasidic community, they actually have a whole room where you can pick up free challah, grape juice, cake, and cookies!

Potential Request

The one potential request I know about now is that there may come a time when my kids are here with no one to pay attention to them. If you have young NYC based kids (or are a kid-whisperer yourself), we may want support in the next week. We really don’t know yet, because timing is out of our control at this point. If that is something that you think you can help with, please email me at margieklein1@gmail.com.

Thank you

I will share more when there is more news to share. Your support and prayer has been incredibly meaningful for our whole family. Thank you.

Much love,

Margie

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Things looking grim

Hi all,

Margie here. Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support.

Summary of What is Going On

Things have gotten much worse over the past few days. I will explain what has happened below, but the shortest version is that she is acutely ill, in the ICU, catatonic, septic, and intubated. We do not know if she will make it through the day or the week, but there is still a possibility things will turn around if the antibiotics they gave her are able to squelch the infection.

On Sunday, Signs of Hope

On Sunday it seemed she was delirious but stable, and the doctors even thought she should go home on Monday. My mom was very excited about going home.

Dialysis Disaster

The medical team decided to do dialysis before she left the hospital, and while doing it, my mom’s blood pressure tanked and she became catatonic. Although the doctors still aren’t completely sure what caused this, her blood counts indicate that she is septic, i.e. there is serious infection in blood stream that will prevent oxygen from getting to her organs if not treated immediately.

Ingathering of the Children

So, they moved her to the ICU and started blasting her with heavy duty antibiotics. At this point, the doctor told me that I should rush to NYC asap because they did not know how long she had to live. I then dropped everything, picked up, and drove to NYC, where I am now.

Ups and Downs

While I was driving down, at one point her heart stopped and they were able to restart it. At another point, my mom came to for a few minutes and told my dad and my mom’s wonderful aid Jessica it was good to see them. She also seemed happy I was coming and asked if my sister was, too. (She is.). And then she lapse back into being unresponsive.

Singing

When I arrived, my mom was catatonic and looked terrible, but I was grateful to be able to sit with her and hold her hand. Once the nurses were done with various treatments, I just sang to her (Elana Brody’s B’shem hashem, which is about being surrounded by angels, and Misheberach, a prayer for healing), which felt sacred and like a kind of spiritual accompaniment event if her conscious mind had no idea I was there.

More downs: Intubation

We had to leave around 9pm, and and 11:30pm they called to say that she was no longer able to breathe on her own and needed to be intubated. This morning the doctors said they planned to give her more regular dialysis, and my dad and I intervened successfully to get her the gentler and slower version called CRRT, because we really did not think she would make it through regular dialysis in the state she was in.

Where We Stand

Now, she continues to be in critical but stable condition. The nurse said that we have to give the antibiotics 48 hours to work. If she seems cognitively better, it is possible she will recover. If her brain function hasn’t improved by then, it is extremely unlikely she will make it, though there are a couple Hail Mary pass-like options they might try at that point. But she was very clear with us that she does not want to be kept alive in a state like the one she is in now.

Keep on Praying!

Though my mom is a pretty literal person and doesn’t really believe in prayer for Divine intervention purposes, I know it has meant so much to her to know that people are praying for and thinking about her from around the world. Thankfully, while we are completely unclear how long she will stay alive, we are very clear that she has lived a wonderful life and knows/knew that she is deeply loved. As does my dad and all of us.

Much love,

Margie

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A Hard Week

Hi all. Margie here. My mom asked me to write if it got to a point where she couldn’t again.

Blood Pressure Scare

It has been a rough week. On Monday, my mom’s blood pressure plummeted during dialysis to a dangerously low level (I think 80/40) and they were unable to bring it up, so they rushed her to the hospital. Though the dialysis staff urged her to go to the closest ER, she insisted on going to NYU Langone, where she had her surgery and where he team of doctors are.

Admitted to Hospital

We originally thought she would just spend the night, but the doctors decided to admit her so they could monitor her more closely because her blood pressure kept dropping precipitously. I know she would rather be at home, but honestly, I was relieved that the doctors wanted to keep her when she is this weak and fragile.

Surgery on Her Wound

She was due to have surgery on Friday to remove some of the necrotic tissue in her surgical wound, but they moved it up and did it on Thursday. Thankfully, my mom survived the surgery and the lead plastic surgeon said it went well. I don’t fully understand the details, but it seems that they removed a bunch of what they needed to and discovered some evidence that the antibiotics are working. That said, they still may need to do another surgery if/when the antibiotics dully kill the infection, because it is unclear if there is enough live tissue for the area to heal on its own. If not, she will need a skin graft.

My mom was relieved to make it through surgery, and, as my dad said, perhaps equally relieved that she was able to get her new cell phone fixed so she could read everyone’s wonderful comments on this blog.

Delirium and Cognitive Challenge

Unfortunately, whether because of the surgery or something else, my mom has become delirious and confused. My dad called quite upset last night to say that yesterday (Saturday) my mom was just totally out of it, unable to understand and process what people were saying to her and asking the same questions over and over. When she was able to form full sentences, she shared delusional ideas such as that the daughter of the woman in the next bed had found a cure for my mom’s kidney problems such that she wasn’t going to be doing dialysis anymore. Describing the situation, my dad said to me, “Mom was there, but it wasn’t Mom.”

Physical Weakness

She also continues to be extremely weak, and has to stop physical therapy after standing for a couple of seconds and go back to sleep for several hours. And whenever she removes her oxygen for a few seconds, her O2 drops to 90%, which isn’t great.

Our hope is that the antibiotics will kick in more, which will give her strength and return her to her lucid and brilliant self. But this is a scary time, and we really don’t know what is going to happen. We are trying to take a cue from my mom and appreciate the good moments.

Prayers/healing Vibes Invited

We invite prayed and healing vibes, as always, and my mom cherished your comments. Again, her Hebrew name is Tzvi’ah bat Paya.

Thanks so much for your support,

Margie

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New Challenges

Serious Infections – Feeling Weak and Tired

I wish I could offer you happier news, but in fact, things have been getting worse, not better. The incision from my heart surgery has opened, and they’ve found a serious infection. It’s a nasty bacteria call Serratia. We dress it every day, and it is oozing out large amounts of yucky stuff. At the same time, I finally got to my podiatrist to treat my painful leg wound, and she cultured that and found that was infected with an also nasty (but less severe) bacteria called pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The good news is that I have an amazing healthcare team working together on this. Last Monday, when we got the results of both cultures, Liz Wirth, my plastic surgeon’s nurse practitioner, got to work and coordinated my nephrologist, plastic surgeon, cardiac surgeon, and podiatrist and brought in an excellent infectious disease doctor. By that evening, I started having intravenous antibiotics (ceftazidime) three times a week during dialysis. They gave me the option of going back to the hospital so they could handle the daily dressings and intravenous treatments, but I strongly preferred to stay home – and between Jessica, my aide, and Ken and Shoshana on weekends, I’m getting excellent care for my wound dressings.

At first, I thought this was something that would be resolved in a short time. But when I met with the infectious disease doctor, he made it clear that I would need six weeks of intravenous antibiotics, that there was a strong likelihood that they would kill both infections, but there was a risk that they would not. He thought the infection went very deep. My cardiologist added that if they don’t kill off the Serratia, it could get in my bloodstream and my heart and be even more dangerous.

In addition, assuming the medication does work, I will need another significant surgery under general anesthesia to put everything back together once the infection clears. But they are giving me more time to get stronger – and for the infection to be killed off – before they do that. But that will be another setback to feeling stronger.

I’ve been spending the week mentally trying to wrap my mind around all this, and how to write about it in this blog. Do I shout “I’m very sick!” or “I have a life-threatening disease?” Today we had a long talk with Liz Wirth, the plastic surgery NP, and she helped calm me down a bit. She thought it was a very good sign that I had no fevers or chills or other evidence that the infection had gotten into my blood.

All this also helped me understand why I’ve made so little progress in getting stronger – I’m weaker than I was earlier after the surgery, and it keeps getting worse, not better. As she pointed out, I have so many issues going on – recovery from heart surgery, kidney injury, ischemic colitis, two serious infections, and more, that, understandably, I’m feeling weak, short of breath, and not making progress despite my efforts. That helped me feel more forgiving to myself for not working harder at rehab.

Meditation

I was a member of Makom Havurah at the Jewish Community Center for five or six years, and always felt like the black sheep of the class, because everyone else practiced seated meditation frequently, and I hardly ever did. But I loved the people, the readings, and the class sessions where we meditated together and did other learning activities twice a month. Rabbi Jonathan Slater, one of the two leaders of the group, read my blog and wrote:

I understand from your email to Carol that you attribute some of your ability to go through this long process with some ease because of your work and practice with the Havurah, which is heart-warming for me, but truly a tribute to your own dedication to the practice, and integration of the practices into your life.

Not to mention being able to dance, even while so limited in mobility in the hospital; to go for walks with Ken and enjoy the world you inhabit; and the support and love from friends around the world.

May you continue  to heal and grow in strength.

Spider Solitaire as a Metaphor

Our dear friend, Susan Schorr, recently taught a series of classes on metaphors at West End Synagogue. The other day as I was playing my favorite smartphone game, Spider Solitaire, I realized there was an important metaphor here. You lay out cards, move them around, and try to put together and remove sets of ace to king of one color until the board is empty. In some deals, everything just falls into place easily. In some, nothing works at all. In others, things start out going easily and then I get stuck, and in others they start not going well, but in the last round things surprisingly fit together. I noticed that while I enjoyed winning deals, I was also curious and impressed with how things worked when they went wrong and I especially liked the deals where things fit together at the end. I noticed that my curiosity about Spider Solitaire, and my interest in what’s happening whether I was winning or losing was the same curiosity that they encourage in the meditation world.

I’m grateful that I’ve mostly been able to take a similar attitude toward my life right now. Although I have moments where I feel frightened that I’m dying, and times that I cry from exhaustion and struggle just to stand up from a chair or walk a few steps, most of the time I just watch and am curious and try to understand what is happening. And I think about how to tell the story to all of you!

My New Mantra

All through this time I’ve had the support and advice of Marion Mackles, a dear friend from West End Synagogue, who is a very seasoned and superb respiratory therapist. She has visited in person and counseled me by phone and Zoom. She has taught me breathing techniques like “pursed-lip breathing” to use when I’m short of breath.

In the early 1970’s, I was trained in Transcendental Meditation, and they gave me a mantra (which I no longer use) and told me to keep it a secret. Ken has always been a bit annoyed that I won’t tell him my mantra. The other day, I realized that when I was short of breath and stopped and did pursed lip breathing, my mind said “Marion” with each breath. I decided that “Marion” is my new mantra!

Today Marion summed up the advice for now, that I need to rest a lot, walk a bit – but that the most important thing right now is resting.

Kulanu

I continue to actively be involved with Kulanu, and am delighted by developments there. If you want news of Kulanu and upcoming events on Zoom, just write to kulanu.org/contact and give us your email.

You

Thanks for your love and care. Thanks for understanding that my story is long and complicated and hard to write, so I’m not able to briefly answer, “How are you doing?” Thanks for being willing to help or visit but respecting the fact that between dialysis and doctors’ appointments and the need to rest, I have to limit visitors. Thanks for understanding that Ken also is on duty a lot and also needs time for himself, so phone calls aren’t helpful to him. I understand the feeling that a friend is ill and I should reach out, but this experience teaches me that an email or blog comment is easier to receive than a call or visit.

I send my love to all of you, and special good wishes to the many others who are also patiently dealing with health ordeals, though less publicly.

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