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 | Sam's 75th and last birthday. Saul, Toby and Lily flew to Florida to be with us. Hava was already there. |
Sam and I spent a lot of time with our children and grandchildren. When my own grandchildren were born, they adored their zaidie and he was good and gentle with them. Our life together was happy. His friends became my friends and mine his. Every Saturday night we met in each other’s houses and played cards. During the summer we went to Gravenhurst, to Pinedale Inn, for two or three weeks. Sam’s longtime friends, Max and Rose Berliner, came too and stayed in the next unit. Sam loved to fish there and to sit sunning himself. We spent every winter in Miami, renting a condo along with a group of friends from Montreal. What great times we had walking on the boardwalk, swimming, going to the theatre, going dancing on New Year’s, playing cards, just talking. Three times while we were in Florida we went on cruises. Almost every fall we went to Europe, to the baths in Hungary or Romania or Israel. Once we went to Poland.
In the winter of 1991, when we were in Florida, Sam found a tiny growth on his neck. At first we thought it was nothing but it turned out to be cancerous. After we came home, following tests and exploratory surgery, we got the bad news. The cancer had spread and there was nothing they could do. It was just a matter of time. I was heartbroken as were our children and grandchildren. The last eight and a half months of Sam’s life were a real nightmare.
 | Sam and me with Helen and Sam Zelikovic in Montreal. |
The wound on his neck, just below his ear, was open, unpleasant and bled constantly. His dressing had to be changed three times a day. It was a heart-wrenching chore but somehow Toby, Lily and I managed. As time went by, the pain he was suffering became more and more intense; he had to take increasingly powerful painkillers.
He didn’t want to eat. I had to see to it that he did. He liked strawberries. So, using Ensure, I made strawberry milkshakes to give him strength. And I gave him chicken soup with small pieces of chicken in it to make sure he got the protein he needed. I fed him with a spoon. Everything had to be ground and mashed. A woman came in a couple of times a week to help bathe him. His brother, Menashe, visited almost daily. During his last summer, our dear Miami friends, Sam and Helen Zelikovic from Montreal, aware of how much he was suffering, invited us to come visit them for a change of scenery. I am very grateful to them. We spent a week with them in Montreal and another in the Laurentians. That was his last trip.
Sam didn’t want many of his friends to see him the way he was. He was a proud man. But there were a few people who used to come over. Sometimes on a good day, he would sit for half an hour or an hour and play cards with them. What worried him most was leaving me behind. He’d say, “The children have their lives and will get used to it. I hate the thought of leaving you alone.” Throughout his long illness, I didn’t want to leave his side. I gave him his medication. I slept in the same bed with him and he held my hand.
 | Yola, Talya and Tarah. |
One of the people Sam felt comfortable with was our dear young friend, Yola. She had graduated in engineering from a polytechnichal institute in Poland; her brother, with whom Sam worked, had arranged for her to emigrate to Canada. Yola, Sam and I became good friends. One of the very few people Sam felt comfortable having at his bedside was Yola and occasionally, she would come at night and sit with him so I could get a few hours sleep. After Sam died, Yola rented part of the house on Denlow and still lives there with me.
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