The Endless Year

It seemed like an ordinary Thursday afternoon. The wind was cold, which was normal for the beginning of March, but there was a faint hint of new leaves and buds as Justine walked the few blocks from the subway to her parents’ apartment in Queens.  She wasn’t thinking about anything in particular; her graduate program was going well, although the three days a week of required field work, at a geographically isolated, dilapidated public hospital, were stressful.  The fact that her father had recently undergone a serious operation made this particular field work assignment uncomfortably close and personal. She told herself that she was mature for a 21-year-old, and could handle it. She’d also had lots of firsthand experience with her father’s health problems since his three heart attacks during her sophomore year of high school.  She had been through difficult situations; coupled with her desire to help people, this was the main reason she had enrolled in social work school in the first place.

As she turned to walk down her parents’ street, her thoughts were focused the paper that she needed to write for school the next day, and on dinner preparations. Her mother worked full-time as a bookkeeper at a bank in downtown Manhattan, and usually arrived home a few minutes before Justine did. Taking the small elevator to the fifth floor of the nondescript red-brick building, Justine found her mother in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and just starting to put the brisket in the oven. “Can you please set the table,” her mother asked, her nightly request. Noticing that her mother seemed distracted and worried, Justine immediately asked, “What’s the matter, Mom?” 

Her mother’s voice was tense: “I haven’t heard from Daddy since early this afternoon.” Justine knew that her parents talked on the phone several times during the day.  Her father always called to let her mother know when he was leaving the office on Manhattan’s East Side where he worked part-time for his cousin, a prominent ophthalmologist, helping with the distribution of a small device that the doctor had patented for the detection of glaucoma.  Her father enjoyed the job, and seemed much happier than he had been ever since his health problems had forced his retirement and prompted their move from Chicago to Florida and then to New York, several years before.  

Her parents had been married for almost 30 years—their anniversary, April 2^nd, was coming up soon—and their relationship was extremely close and loving.  By nature, both of them were gentle, calm, yet resilient: refugees from the Holocaust; they had met and married just before World War II, and had fled from Europe to the U.S. in November 1938.  Their families had not been able to leave in time, and virtually all of their close relatives had perished during the war.   

“Oh, you know, he probably just stopped at the bakery,” said Justine, trying her best to sound convincing. “Or maybe he just wants to bring you a surprise, like that beautiful sweater he bought you a few weeks ago.”  Her mother’s concerned expression didn’t change, and she didn’t seem reassured. “But he would have called me before he left the office,” she repeated softly, over and over again.

Dinner was almost ready. The minutes passed slowly, but the telephone didn’t ring, and there was no word from Justine’s father.  Justine and her mother paced back and forth between the kitchen and the small dining area, not speaking much, becoming increasingly anxious.  Suddenly, at 6:35pm, the doorbell rang.  Justine, closer to the foyer, she ran to answer it.  She opened the door to find two uniformed policemen standing on the threshold, looking somber and uncomfortable. In that instant, even before they spoke, she knew by their expressions that her family and her life had just changed forever.

Hugging her sobbing mother, Justine barely heard the policemen’s words of sympathy and their descriptions of what had happened.  Strangers had found her father lying in the street on Madison Avenue, just a block from his cousin’s office, apparently the victim of a fatal heart attack.  His cousin had already gone to the medical examiner’s office, and had spared Justine and her mother the task of identifying the body.  As a doctor, he was also able to attest to her father’s medical history, which fortunately prevented the need for an autopsy; Jewish law would have not permitted her father to be buried in a Jewish cemetery if the body was not intact.  

Although later she had no clear recollection, Justine and her mother somehow made it through the funeral the next day, and the difficult days after that.  Justine’s older brother, who was married and lived in Boston, arrived and stayed for the Shivah, the weeklong ritual Jewish mourning period.  As the days passed, Justine became increasingly anxious and fearful, reluctant to face the return to her field work assignment at the hospital.  Still numb from the shock of her father’s sudden death, she doubted her ability to provide support for the depressed and troubled patients who she was supposed to be helping.  

“I really, really want to drop out of the program,” Justine pleaded tearfully to her mother and brother, trying to convince them (and herself) that she would be able to quickly find a job while she decided on a new academic direction. “I really can’t stand the thought of going back there!” she cried.  But they were adamantly against the idea. “You’ve almost finished the first year of a two-year program, so this was not the time to quit!” declared her brother furiously. “You’ll need a way to support yourself now, and finishing the program pretty much guarantees you a solid professional position in the future. Don’t be stupid!” Feeling outnumbered and defeated, with many doubts, Justine finally agreed to finish out the school year.            

In the following weeks, some semblance of life resumed. Nothing seemed normal, but Justine and her mother returned to their respective duties at work and at school, trying to pretend that things might at some point improve, yet knowing that nothing would ever be the same. It was barely a month later when Justine awoke to the sound of the clock radio playing sad, funereal music, and discovered that Martin Luther King had been assassinated.  Justine and her mother’s grief mingled with the shock and sorrow of the entire country and the world; the added burden seemed almost too much to bear.

As she struggled privately with her own feelings, Justine tried to help her mother adjust to her new life as a widow, accompanying her to museums and movies on the weekends, attempting to provide distraction as well as solace.  She struggled to accommodate to her new role as her mother’s constant companion and support. Then, two months later, Justine and her mother were again awakened by slow, sad music on the radio: this time it was for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.  In disbelief and anguish, Justine began to feel that the all-pervasive sadness of this year would never end.  

Their only relatives in New York were Justine’s aunt and uncle, her mother’s older sister and her husband. They had lived in the city for many years and had a wide circle of friends. Very involved with their own lives and activities, they were barely available to Justine’s mother, either emotionally or otherwise, and didn’t seem interested in providing much support. Then, at the end of the summer, her seemingly healthy and strong uncle suddenly collapsed at his workplace, diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He died a few months later, on Thanksgiving.  After his death, in some strange and unspoken way, it was assumed to be Justine’s responsibility to console and take care of her aunt, just as Justine did for her mother. 

Trying to maintain a normal social life with her friends became a challenge for Justine that year. She didn’t have much free time, and when she did meet with her friends, she carried with her a constant nagging feeling, a sense of guilt that she had left her mother alone and that she, Justine, was shirking an unspoken duty. Though she realized that this was not a rational thought, it nevertheless troubled her and limited the enjoyment of joining her friends’ activities.  

The burden of her mother’s loneliness continued to weigh heavily on her shoulders. Justine spent that awful year trying to console herself with cliches: “Mine is not the worst situation in the world,” she repeated often. “Many people are worse off than me,” she told herself silently. “Things will get better with time.” The words didn’t help much, but the passage of time did lessen the intensity of her mother’s and her own grief.  Still, it was a very, very, very long year. 

It was not until much later that Justine began to understand and acknowledge the lasting emotional effects of that year. Only gradually did she come to recognize how strongly and ably she had risen to the challenge, what an effort it had been, and what a toll it had taken. She had never thought of herself as being particularly brave. But finally, years later, she acknowledged to herself that bravery, in fact, can take many different forms.