Page 189 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

The loss of Fannie

It was only a few days after my grandson Jordan’s bar mitzvah
that Fannie felt a pain in her breast. Not wanting to worry me or the
children, she went to the doctor without telling us about her grief.
She came back with the dreadful verdict: cancer. A trial by jury takes
time and the criminal is more or less used to the procedure. He
expects the verdict, which can be appealed, so he still has a chance.
But here she went to the doctor one day and is condemned to be cut
the next day, like a court martial on the battlefield, where one is
condemned and dispatched by sunrise. The shock of that verdict was
enough to shatter the strongest nerves.
They were the most trying moments of my life, when she went
through that operation. It lasted better than five hours, while life was
in the balance. My daughter Carmel and I waited in suspense during
those hours, waiting to hear a word from the operating room
upstairs. But not a word. What imaginations crept through my
consciousness, what black pictures fluttered before my eyes! It was
my first time in a hospital during an operation, and it was hard to
control my tears. I was choked by unshed tears clogging my throat.
Fortunately, Carmel was there to inquire and inform me of the
proceedings. When at last Fannie was brought down, with half a
dozen attendants hovering around the limp body on the carriage,
with gas tanks, jars of blood, and other mechanical instruments, I
saw black before my eyes, and could not talk to the doctor. It was
twenty-four hours before she could open her eyes and look at us. She
needed ten days in the hospital, with three private nurses and oxygen
and other gases to save her from a pneumonia attack. Then she had
to travel every day to the doctor for radiation, medicines, and more
suffering.
Four months after the operation Fannie still was weak and felt
pain. That made me feel melancholy. I had morbid thoughts, which I
expressed often with heavy sighing. A man nearing seventy is nearing
journey’s end, and is naturally influenced by sad surroundings.
Pride—in a small measure—is helpful in building character in youth,

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