A Tribute to Rochelle Lorraine Sirulnick Hoffman

I'm really backlogged on my postings and I want to get this one out before too much more time passes. We were riding on a trolley bus in Council Bluffs yesterday for "Train Days" and I was missing my visits with Grandma Hoffman. Other than the 7 months we spent visiting her 1-2 times a week we only go to Council Bluffs about 6 times a year.

Grandma Hoffman was hospitalized with Pneumonia on the 16th of April. It was the day my parents were driving from Colorado to pick up their RV in Louisiana. The amazing thing is that it was the day after my mom had her PICC line removed and the first day they could leave. The timing really couldn't have been better.

She passed on at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday 22 April 2009 one week short of her 91st birthday. We were with her on Tuesday evening and answered the phone for relatives to tell her they love her and say goodbye to her. My mom was amazing to think to do that and I'm so glad I didn't have to handle things alone.

I'm a bit of a family history buff and think the information on her death certificate is interesting... It just makes me a little skeptical of records I find because there are so many differences to what I thought were facts. The major one is that it lists "Informant's Name: Ronald Hoffman" from Pennsylvania. There is no "Ronald Hoffman" from Pennsylvania... That is my father and his last name is not Hoffman nor does he live in PA. (The reason it says PA is extraneous and the Hoffman was just an assumption). My point is that it would bring up questions for a family history researcher that aren't explainable by the death certificate alone or even without a lot more information.

It says she died of Alzheimer's Disease... Grandma was really quite sharp considering she was 90. She did have Alzheimer's moments when we would show up and her eyes would be all glassy, but usually when Benjamin started nattering at her, she would come out of it and be very alert and responsive. (She even corrected my bad math in my "new mom sleep deprived state"... Oh, I forgot about the time she told Ryan and I, "I know what you're really here for...", but once in 7 months really isn't that bad).

The spellings of her parents names are different than I would have spelled them, but it is quite understandable considering that I found them listed on an Ellis Island ship manifest as "Joine and Malke Zirjulnikow" not "Joseph and Molly Sirulnick (or Sirlnic)".

So a tribute to Grandma: I'm not sure where to start with this... but here we go. Grandma was a bit of a bitter New Yorker Jew... not really Jewish in faith though... mostly agnostic without much direction (she really feared death).

*** Disclaimer*** I was told that the previous comment could be interpreted as being anti-semitic. It is not intended to be that way in any shape or form. I am proud of my Jewish heritage.

She was a waitress for much of her early life and said she tipped well because of that... but I've never seen waitstaff walking on eggshells as much as when we went to 3Gs Deli in Delray Beach, FL with her where she was a regular customer. Grandma washed my brother's mouth out with soap when we were kids (I don't remember the details so you'd have to ask him). She didn't really have any friends or hobbies... she had husbands instead. When I was about 13, she sent me all of her old lacy padded bras. I was a very shocked by the gift and quite embarrassed.

In spite of all that, Grandma was a good woman. She never forgot my birthday or Christmas and she was always good to me. (Even if I did write a poem in Jr. High about my Grandmas called the "Thin one and the Plump one"... which my mom gave her a copy to read... I'm not sure if it gave her a complex, but there was a while she lost a lot of weight, but when you're only ~5' tall it's hard to look thin).

When my parents moved her to Iowa in Aug, she stopped walking. We tried to get her to use her walker to go to the dining room and she lashed out. It was that sort of hurt/scared not knowing how or not wanting to be courageous lashing out. The trying to deal with getting old sort of lashing out. She was always grateful when we came to visit her.

Grandma had a hard life. She had a single mom growing up and was a single mom for about a decade. Eventually, she married the man I know as my Grandpa Hoffman. He helped heal some of her hurts and made her a better woman. I never really new my Grandma well other than from reading her book. It is an autobiography which my dad said contains a lot of untruth... but no matter how factually true it is or not, it shows her perception of her life and it was a hard life from the facts I do know. I didn't get to know Grandma much better during our visits because there is much of the past I believe she wanted to keep buried, but I am grateful for the time I spent with her. I just tried to show her my love for her (while Benjamin ran around a bit crazy entertaining the other residents).

I know that God judges us by our hearts and judges our lives based on the knowledge we have and I'm not worried about where Grandma will end up. I just hope she had a joyful reunion with Grandpa Hoffman.

As a sad and bit twisted aside, we got a Birthday card in the mail for Grandma from the nursing home staff. They must have not relayed her death info quick enough. We also got the invitation to her memorial service an hour after it occurred when we picked up the mail. I guess they figured it only took a day for mail to get across town.