The Story about my Mother.
My name is Rachel Foss, and I am blessed to be my Mom’s caregiver. Every mother is special, but my Mom means a world to me, and you will understand why after reading my story.
The story of my Mother is a story of outstanding heroism, courage and love. Do not be surprised that I write the word “Mother” with a capital letter, as that is my tribute to her. My Mother, Betya Bershtein , is my greatest love, my inspiration, and my life model. I want to tell her life story from the beginning.
She was born on September 30, 1922 in a small town of Mogilev-Podolsky (Ukraine) in a poor Jewish family. This period in the Ukraine’s history was marked by poverty, famine, and distraction. Nevertheless, she grew in a big, loving family: a father, a mother, and 2 sisters. Despite of the loss of two brothers during Ukrainian famine of 1933-1935, my Mother was a happy Soviet child who played outdoors, studied at school, and participated in all extra- school activities. She was a beautiful, outgoing, and ambitious young girl with great personality and great plans for future.
In September 1940 Betya, became a student of the most prestigious Moscow College of Aviation. She could not know that only in 18 days her life and destiny would change forever. On that tragic day September 18, 1940, Betya wake up with a terrible headache due to the nightmare she had last night. Someone in her dream told Mom that she would become an amputee, and asked her what she preferred to lose a leg or a hand. In the dream Betya chose a leg…When Mom shared with her roommates her terrible dream, all of them suggested her not to go to college that day, but Mom did not listen to them.
In order to get to the college, Betya needed to take a trolley that arrived very seldom, so when she saw almost departing trolley, she began running and managed to jump on the last step. On that same moment one very drunk passenger inside the trolley started pushing other passengers, as he realized that he had missed his stop, ioand Betya fell on the rails. Due to sharp pain she lost conscience and since that moment she had not remembered anything: sounds of breaks, screams of people, and a bloody shoe with her foot on the rails, an amputation that was done almost without anesthesia. Betya opened her eyes in a week and looked at the calendar ….6 days left to her eighteen years birthday. Regardless to all pain and horror, Betya tried to remain optimistic and cheered her spirit with a poem by her favorite poetess Lesya Ukrainka:” No, I will laugh through my pain and tears. I will sing when a trouble appears. I will hope when my hope goes away. I will grow a rose on a cold, winter day” Believe it or not, but this poem helped her to survive and became a motto of her life. After the hospital Mom left the college and returned to her native town on crutches…
On the 22 of June 1941 Fascist Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and first bombs fell on Mogilev. Mass graves of Jews and crematoriums started appear on all territories occupied by Nazis. In order to survive from Holocaust, my Mom’s family managed to escape by a miracle. Actually, “a miracle” was a horse and a cart that my grandfather had. He brought my grandma and three daughters to the railway station. My grandfather joined the Soviet Army, and my grandmother with children evacuated to Kazakhstan. It was a long and dangerous trip in overcrowded coaches, without food and water under relentless bombings attacks. Almost three years in evacuation my Mom was working as a nurse and an entertainer for wounded soldiers and as a private teacher for local children. Moreover, she continued her education being on crutches, living in unbearable conditions, and burying her love ones, among them was her younger sister Anna who died on her arms from tuberculosis at the age of 15.
In 1944 my Mom’s family returned to the Ukraine, and due to gangrene Betya needed to have another amputation. This time the leg was cut beneath the knee. However, physical pain did not impact her spirit and perseverance. My Mother graduated from Chernovitz University as an honored student with Master Degree in Biology. Being still on crutches, she moved to Kiev to pursue her brilliant career of a scientist. Fortunately, Betya managed to get her first prosthesis in 1946, and since that time she started to live and feel like a regular person working hard without any excuses. My Mother’s scientific career was very successful. She was an author of more than 300 scientific articles that were published in various Soviet and foreign editions. After getting her Ph.Degree in Biology, she decided to become a mother. Betya was a successful, beautiful, young woman, but she was not married (men do not like to marry handicapped women). “I am almost forty, and I need a daughter that will take care of me when I am old”-she said to herself. Shortly, I was born. Betya raised me alone without any financial or moral help working full time. Her friends, colleagues, and neighbors helped her. I don’t know how she managed to do everything alone. I grew up in the atmosphere of love and happiness surrounded by Mom’s friends-scientific elite society of Ukraine. As a child, I was visiting all concerts, theatres, and art exhibitions. When I was 6 years old, Mom decided that a child should study English. She enrolled me to English classes. All this happened during the Cold War when America was considered to be the main Soviet’s enemy. Till now I recollect the picture from my childhood. It was a cold winter day. The roads were covered by snow and ice, and my Mom was taking me to an English class. She carried a cane in one hand and a little girl in another hand.
I do not know why God sends difficulties to one person. My mom survived multiple medical operations, such as paralysis of her lower body ( One year I was living and studying in my aunt’s family, as Mom was in a hospital), 6 operations on her eye led to total blindness of a right eye, hysterectomy, hip replacement, and renal failure. In 2010, when I came to Israel in order to take her to the USA, she got a stroke, and a doctor told me: “Your Mom won’t survive a flight. She is 88 years old. Leave her in Israel in a nursing home.” My answer was –“No”. She survived 16 hour flight from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles where we successfully landed on July 4, 2010. It had passed 4 years of happiness since that time. Despite of new medical problems, her spirit is still not destroyed. Like a mythical bird Phoenix she revives from ashes. Dialysis and colostomy do not prevent us from celebrating her 90 years old birthday. I hope that my Mom will survive her new difficulties with courage and dignity because every night she whispers a poem that becomes a prayer.
“ No, I will laugh through my pain and tears
I will sing when a trouble appears.
I will hope when my hope goes away,
I will grow a rose on a cold winter day.”
The story of her life would not be complete, without a Passover Miracle that happened on April 12, 2014.On that day, during dialysis treatment her blood pressure fell drastically, and she passed out for 10 minutes, but the professional actions of dialysis team returned her back to life. She was hospitalized to Mercy Scripps Hospital. I left an emergency room about 8:00 PM after a doctor said me:”She is OK. We will watch her for couple of days. You need to rest”. I went home with a feeling of relief. When I was leaving she smiled. “Everything will be fine. I am alive”- were her last words.
The telephone woke me up at midnight. The nurse from the hospital told me: “Your Mom lost a lot of blood, we do not feel pulse, and she is not breathing”. The world collapsed for me. I did not remember how I got dressed, how got into a car, and how I got to the hospital. My husband drove the car, and tried to calm me down. “Everything will be OK. Not this time”. When we arrived, a chaplain Sister Bess, met us in the hall. That was already a bad sign. Sister Bess escorted us to the Intensive Care Unit. My Mom was lying connected to various tubes, monitors and other equipment. The monotonous sound of breathing machine, tube in her throat, doctors, nurses…. I did not hear or see anything or anyone.. My Mom, my hero, my angel was lying on the bed –pale but beautiful. I touched her hand it was cold, tears covered my eyes. I could not believe that I would not see her tomorrow. Young doctor asked me: “What is your decision?” With a bleeding heart I answered:” Take off the tube. I don’t want her to suffer”. He reassured me that they would give her medicine that helps her to die painlessly. I prayed, waved her farewell, and went to the waiting room. Sister Bess was sitting with us trying to calm me. We started discuss funeral procedures. All this happened on the eve of Passover, and Jewish mortuary does not work. “Don’t worry,- said sister Bess- there is a Christian mortuary that will keep the body. All of us are the children of God”. Twenty minutes passed and Sister Bess went to check to the ICU. She returned with a smile on her face. “I don’t know what to tell you-she is alive. I have never seen anything similar to this.” I could not believe, but it was true. When the doctors took off the tube, she started to breathe herself. All staff of ICU was shocked, but happy for me and my gorgeous MOM. I started believing in miracles and God’s power.
She returned home in three days. My Mom was weak, but alive. We are together again, and will overcome all future challenges that G- d will send to us. Only now I understood that Lord is great, and his Mercy is enormous. Pray, believe and hope till the last moment and a miracle will happen.
After this miraculous resurrection My Mom had another 2 years of happy life surrounded by her love ones. We continued to go to dialysis, but she started to fade. Her 93 years old body required longer sleep time, sometimes she did not recognize us, she forgot her sister, and she refused to eat. On Tuesday, July 12,2016 everything repeated : dialysis, removed needle, loss of blood, loss of consciousness, ambulance, oxygen, Scripps Hospital. This time a miracle did not happen. Our small family consisting of my daughter, my husband and myself was sitting by her bed watching the monitor. The heart beats became less frequent 50,40,30,20,10 and straight line. My Gorgeous MOM went to heaven. My daughter wrote on her page in Instagram: “May your soul rest in peace "babushka*. You were such a fighter and persevered through the most difficult .obstacles the life threw at you. You raised me and taught me how to be a strong woman that I am. You loved unconditionally and beat all the odds. I will leave out your legacy and make you proud until we meet again. Please look over Mom & I and know we are forever grateful and missing you”