My mom lived on an Alzheimer’s unit at the Hebrew Home for over 10 years, and on most of my weekly visits, I would take her off the unit. We would go to the facility’s cafe, to the terrace, to the art museum, to the weekly concerts, and to see the birds in their cages and the fish in their tank. For years, we walked hand in hand until she could no longer walk, and then I would roll her around the nursing home in a wheelchair. 

But in the last several months of my mom’s life, I stopped taking her off the unit. Whenever I visited, she was either sleeping or so out of it that she could barely see me. Her disease had destroyed her brain to such an extent that I figured my mom didn’t know or care where she was. I thought nothing mattered to her. Not only didn’t she look at me most of the time, she didn’t look at anything. 

I decided it was easier just to sit with my mom in her room or in another room on her unit. There, I would comb her hair, trim and clean her nails, and rub lotion onto her hands. And kiss her on the forehead. Those were the only things I could do for her anymore, and with the passage of time, she responded less and less. 

I was surprised when, one day in November 2023, my mom’s aide suggested I take my mom downstairs.

“She’ll enjoy it,” she said.

“Really?” I couldn’t believe it, didn’t think my mom could enjoy anything anymore.

But I said okay.

I wheeled her down the hall, and we took the elevator to the Winter Garden, the site of so many Sunday afternoon Hebrew Home concerts. My mom and I had attended them together for years, with the community gathered around us. But we’d stopped going long before, as my mom didn’t seem to enjoy them any longer. Or maybe it was upsetting to me to watch her be unresponsive to the music around her. Whatever the reason, I stopped taking her.

That day in November 2023, I brought my mom to the Winter Garden because I knew we were too early for the concert. I just wanted her to be in the spacious room with the glass domed ceiling she used to look up at. Not surprisingly, she didn’t look at much that day. I held her hand, and I took in the silence.

Within a few minutes, a minister arrived, and he and his wife began to set up chairs on the opposite side of the room from where we were sitting. The minister’s wife connected a laptop to a large screen TV. Residents began to show up, and they sat in the chairs that faced the pastor’s podium. When they settled, music started, and everyone began to sing hymns.

As I watched, it occurred to me that a church service had magically materialized alongside us, and I had a few options. I could ignore it and pretend it wasn’t happening. I could wheel my mom away and into another quiet area to avoid it, or I could move my mom closer to it, make her a part of it. I did the last thing, wheeling my mom over to where the congregation sat and dragging a chair over for myself so that we could both face the minister.

Years earlier, at the Hebrew Home, I had taken my mom to their Easter Service, same minister, same minister’s wife. It didn’t do much for either one of us. I had given up on religion long before, and the service occurred at an inconvenient time. My mom was confused. Once deeply religious – so religious that she would cry over my lack of belief in God – my mom could no longer locate her own faith, or even understand what it might mean. Her disease had wiped it all away.

But that day in November, something changed for both my mom and for me at that service. Songs were sung. Bible verses were read. A sermon was delivered. Prayers were uttered. And through it all, my mom’s eyes were open. She was more alert than I had seen her in months. And I felt a sense of peace that I had never felt before in church.

“There’s finally something more I can do for my mom,” I later told my girlfriend Victoria. In what I knew was likely the last stage of her life, I could take my mom to church.

But the second time that we went was not as magical as the first. My mom slept through most of the service. I tried to wake her, hoping she would connect with it again, just as she had the week before. But she didn’t seem able to be there. I finally gave up and just held her hand. And I listened to the service on my own.

Still, when Christmas Eve happened to fall on a Sunday, I was excited to take my mom to the church service. But when I arrived, she was sleeping in her bed. I asked if they could take her out of bed and put her into a wheelchair, but her unit was short-staffed that day, and no one was available to get her ready so that I could roll her down to the service.

“You should have let us know you were coming,” her aide told me. She was sorry, but she couldn’t help.

I sat on the edge of my mom’s bed and held her hand. She was sleeping deeply. I caressed her hair. I kissed her forehead. And then I went downstairs to the service, alone.

I didn’t get back to the Hebrew Home the following Sunday, New Years Eve, because Victoria hosted a brunch at her apartment, and I didn’t want to miss it. I told myself I would see my mom the Sunday after, and I would call ahead so that the aide could have her ready, in her wheelchair, for me to take her down to church.

But I couldn’t make that call, because a nurse from the Hebrew Home called me early on the morning of my planned visit. She told me my mom had passed away. I could see my mom, she said, and so Victoria took me. When we arrived, we stood near her bed where her body was lying. I looked at her face. I stroked her hair, and I kissed her forehead. She was already cold.

My mom was 96 years old. Her brain had been lost for a long time already to Alzheimer’s Disease. We hadn’t had a real conversation in years. She wasn’t able to do anything. She could no longer walk, or dress herself, or feed herself, or use the bathroom on her own. She was eating mush. She could barely utter a word. I couldn’t tell if anything gave her joy or pleasure or even comfort anymore. And more than once, my sisters and I had sat down with her and assured her that she could let go, that we would be okay without her, that she could finally rest.

But she held on.

On January 7, 2024, she finally let go. Maybe that morning, her body just gave out. But maybe it wasn’t that simple; maybe she had understood a lot more than I’d realized. Maybe, going to the service had helped her reconnect with her faith. Or maybe seeing me there convinced her that I was going to be okay. Whatever the reason, my mom decided she could finally go home.