Miracle of miracles

(Jack Inhaber: Unbroken by the Holocaust*)

In the late '60s as a young nurse, I worked for a few years at what was then called Maimonides Hospital and Home for the Aged. It was in Côte Saint-Luc — still on the Island of Montreal but a good long bus ride from where I lived in downtown Montreal.

I don't really remember how I came to be working there. Did I answer a newspaper ad? Did someone tell me about the job? I can't answer that but there I was — head nurse on the fourth floor. This is how Maimonides looked then. (It has since been topped up with two more storeys.)

Geriatric nursing is not for everyone but I was good at it. As always, I was much better taking care of my patients (and my staff) than taking care of my paperwork. Priorities, let's say.

My patients were mostly all in their mid- to late-80s. Some were in their 90s. They had all, without exception, come to Montreal from Eastern Europe (mostly Russia, Poland and Romania) around the turn of the last century, many fleeing pogroms and other persecution in their home countries. They covered the whole range in religious practice from orthodox, conservative and reform. At least a couple were secular Jews although they didn't broadcast that.

They all spoke Yiddish and although their English was good, it was peppered with colourful Yiddish expressions and their inflection was text-book. Kosher dietary laws were all practiced in our dining rooms and regular worship was offered in the beautiful Synagogue.

On my floor, there were two men who spent much of their day in the Synagogue, praying and studying the Talmud and the Torah. They would leave the floor right after breakfast, wearing the prayer shawl and the tefillin.

Tefillin are a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, which are worn by observant Jews during weekday morning prayers. . . The arm-tefillin, or shel yad, is placed on the upper arm, and the strap wrapped around the arm/hand, hand and fingers; while the head-tefillin, or shel rosh, is placed above the forehead. The Torah commands that they should be worn to serve as a "sign" and "remembrance" that God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt.

The orthodox men were uneasy with us but they were not unkind to the nurses. It was clear though that this would not have been their ideal living situation and I encouraged my staff to respect their religious privacy.

Our oldest patient was Mrs. Kimmerfield (the rest of her family went by the name Field) — she was 98. She was a tiny little woman and never said much. She gave the impression that she had already said everything she had to say. One day, I went into her room and she was sitting going through her photo album. I sat down with her and looked at some of her photos and heard some stories. As so many of us lament about our own parents and grandparents, I wish I had paid more attention to the stories I heard at Maimonides. I passed up a lot of social history.

When she had closed her photo album, she sighed a little sadly and said, "You know, there's no one left who calls me by my first name." I asked her if I could and she happily said, "Yes." Her name was Leah and from that day on, we were Leah and Sharon. We had made a real connection — and I have never forgotten how important it was to her to hear the sound of her first name.

One hot summer's day, I had a phone call from Leah's daughter with a message. I went down to her room and said, "Ruth called to say she's not coming this afternoon because she's playing golf. She'll probably be here later." Leah asked me what the temperature was and I said it was hot — it was in the high 80s. "Playing golf," she scoffed. "The old fool." What a good laugh we had together.

We had two husband-and-wife couples on our floor and thankfully, they each had their own double room. The Steins were a fractious couple although that's probably an unfair description. Mr. Stein was grouchy and Mrs. Stein had to spend a lot of time pacifying him. He took a lot of his grouchiness out on her and although we tried to act as a buffer, she was stoic and for sure, truly believed that he was her duty. He had certain lovable qualities but he wasn't an easy husband.

The Herers were entirely different. Mr. Herer was grumpy (it's different from grouchy) but no one could ask for a more devoted and tender husband. He got Mrs. Herer out of bed in the morning, helped her get dressed and settled in her chair, brought her breakfast and sat with her while she ate and then left her with her radio and reading material while he went off to his daily routine. He spent much of his time in the art/craft room and I was honoured — really I was — when he presented me with one of his mosaics. That was almost 50 years ago and his creation is still with me and is in regular use on special occasions.

This is it. (Don't forget to click on the picture.) I'm still so impressed by the meticulous artistry:

I started writing this because I was going to tell you about a book I've just read called Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof. The book "traces how and why the story of Tevye the milkman, the creation of the great Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem, was reborn as blockbuster entertainment and a cultural touchstone, not only for Jews and not only in America." (Amazon says.) It made me think about my years at Maimonides and my beloved patients there — so many things in the book reminded me of them — and it made sense for me to reminisce a bit before I told you about the book.

Obviously, I'll have to come back tomorrow to tell you about Wonder of Wonders.

(*The painting at the top is by a current patient at Maimonides, Jack Inhaber. This was painted in 2009.)

(The two parts of Wonder of Wonders are here and here.)