The Heart Mender’s Last Breath

Death—it’s a word we skim over, a concept we try to ignore. We hear about it on the news, feel a pang of sorrow when it touches someone close to us, but nothing truly prepares us for the intimate, brutal moment when death arrives for someone we cannot imagine living without. In that raw, heart-wrenching moment, every hollow phrase—”died peacefully,” “passed in their sleep”—becomes painfully inadequate. And to be clear, it’s never enough time regardless of age and years.

Leon Levinsky was the “Heart Mender” (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

Nothing could prepare me for the reality of losing my father, Leon Levinsky—a man whose life was devoted to mending hearts, who, in my mind, earned the title “Heart Mender.” For decades, he healed others, saving countless lives as a renowned heart surgeon. His surgical skills spanned a number of countries, beginning at Guy’s Hospital Medical School in England to Beilinson Hospital in Israel, where he was part of the nation’s first heart transplant team, to Buffalo, New York, where he pioneered biventricular pacemaker procedures. When Israel called during the Yom Kippur War, Leon answered without hesitation, returning to serve as a surgeon—his scalpel very much like his sword. The newspaper caption read “The surgeon who returned.”

“The Surgeon Who Returned” (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

But when his time came, he lay still, beyond my reach, and I was powerless to save him. My father and I shared a very open, if anxious, view of death, masked by dark humor and a mutual love for Woody Allen films—especially Whatever Works, with Larry David’s character grasping for meaning amidst existential dread. We would often wax poetic about life’s purpose, but none of this could have prepared me for witnessing my father’s last breaths or for the desperate, silent plea in his closed eyes when I begged him to stay.

“A Boy of the Sun,” childhood days in South Africa with Roland and Anne (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

Only three days before he began his descent into death, a brief surge of hope had brightened my father’s spirit; his face lighting up as he spoke of future plans. Leon, who recently had his feeding tube removed, believed he was on the verge of a new normal. We even made tentative plans to take him swimming, rekindling a cherished tradition. “I’m a child of the sun,” he would say, recalling his South African boyhood.

Doc Parkinson’s defying the odds with daily walks and exercise (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

Oh how he loved the ocean and walking barefooted along the beach either in Malibu, Channel Islands, and Carpenteria. He became an enigma to his neurologists, because he was capable of so much in spite of his Parkinson’s diagnosis. It was the reason we decided to write about his journey, and I thought how fun to use the title “Doc Parkinson’s.”

Yet after the procedure, he raised concerns about his aftercare and persistent abdominal pain. His doctor, though smiling and polite, seemed eager to move on to the next patient, indifferent to the quiet alarm in my father’s voice. The look on my father’s face was unmistakable—disappointment, perhaps even embarrassment that conveyed how little he mattered at this stage of his life—a stark contrast to the respect he had always shown his own patients, listening intently, no matter how long the day had stretched.

A panic attack followed. I tried to soothe him with one of our rituals, stopping at his favorite soft-served yogurt place in Westlake Village, but he was visibly shaken. The truth was, he should never have needed that feeding tube in the first place. It was the outcome of a disastrous hospital stay the previous summer, marked by a series of mistakes that revealed the system’s tragic failings. What began as a simple case of dehydration, quickly spiraled into a severe decline that exacerbated his Parkinson’s symptoms that we had managed quite well up until that moment.

The second hospital stay, due to COVID, only worsened things. Although he recovered from the virus within a few days, the aftermath led to invasive procedures and mounting indignities. When they administered a swallow test to a patient prone to panic attacks, of course, he failed. And then what? This was someone who had been eating regular meals before he was hospitalized with no fear of aspiration. It was a disheartening example of an unintelligent system.

California Fishing (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

The feeding tube marked the onset of his rapid deterioration. One minute we were enjoying walks along the beach even fishing, the next my father was confined to a hospital bed, reduced to a shadow of himself. It was impossible to explain to the doctors the vitality he’d radiated before he crossed into their world.

I managed to secure an early discharge, hoping to reverse some of the damage, and for a fleeting time, it seemed possible. Within days, he was using a walker, showering alone, reconnecting with friends around the world, discussing politics, books, and memories of his life across England, Israel, and South Africa. But the hospital’s harm proved irreversible. Slowly, as the weeks passed, he slipped back into immobility, his spirit diminished by memories of repeated medical errors, and a fear of death.

How could a nurse have inserted an IV needle outside his vein, ignoring his pleas for help throughout the night, while his arm swelled painfully? Or left a catheter in place that caused him such agony he was drenched in sweat, his heartbeat racing to 170, with no nurse around to assist him? Only my walking into the room saved his life. It’s shocking. And you should never place a geriatric patient in a small, windowless room shared with another patient, especially not when they’re experiencing hospital-induced delirium—a condition that no one bothered to explain to us, and I only realized what was happening through my own research. We were fortunate to have a patient advocate who secured better accommodations for Leon, but even her efforts couldn’t undo the damage already inflicted.

In his final days, I watched as he wavered in his decision about hospice care, assuring me that he wasn’t giving up on life but rather seeking the pain relief that hospice could provide. I clung to the belief that he would recover, that this was not the end. Even he seemed unconvinced by the choice, haunted by a wish to live—after all, he asked the hospice nurses whether he could still receive his usual weekly therapies, the answer was no! He expressed his wish to resume swimming, and I assured him that I would be helping him daily with therapies and could not wait to go to the beach or dip inside the pool again. But death, once invited, does not wait. That weekend, when he asked for an IV, I reminded him that hospice would not provide it. The anguish in his eyes mirrored my own helplessness.

Tuesday morning, he did not wake up. In a haze of grief, I begged for an IV, as if hydration alone could bridge the widening gap between life and death. Yet I knew, deep down, that nothing could turn him back from this path. As he labored for each breath, his hands clenched in a twisted, agonizing position, the painful truth unfolded in front of me. I had always imagined that when his time came, he would drift away in his sleep, perhaps after a perfect day spent wading in the ocean. But instead, I watched as he fought, the sweat glistening on his brow, his face set in a frown of resistance. His breath rasped—a harsh, relentless sound that filled the room, like a haunting symphony of death.

A rabbi visited, her voice soft yet unwavering as she offered comfort. The phrase “end of life” echoed in my mind, solidifying the inevitability of what I had long resisted. She sang for him, for us, and I wept uncontrollably. His chest rose and fell with painful effort, his face pale and drawn—but still, it was the face I loved. I wondered if he understood what was happening, if he lingered somewhere between life and the unknown. With each breath he took, each moment that slipped away, the reality became increasingly unbearable.

His color began to fade—a strange yellowish pallor replacing his once-warm complexion. His breathing grew even more jarring, a dreadful rhythm that filled every corner of the room with an almost violent insistence. It was as if each strained inhale and exhale tore at the air itself, harsh and unrelenting. His mouth gaped open, wide and unnatural. There was nothing peaceful in those moments; his breaths were not the soft decline one might hope for but rather a wrenching, chaotic struggle that went on and on, tormenting me with their persistence. It was the one sound that I couldn’t escape, a brutal reminder of his pain, as each breath grew quieter but no less disturbing. I didn’t want him to suffer, yet I couldn’t let go. I prayed for an end to his struggle, but I held tightly to his hand, unwilling to say goodbye. When his breathing softened into a mere whisper, only to erupt again in jarring, involuntary jerks, I felt as if I might lose my mind.

His age made no difference; it never does for those left to witness this tormenting spectacle of suffering.

Then, a ray of sunlight breached the half-closed shutters, flooding the room with light that felt almost mocking. How could the sun be so indifferent to the heartbreaking scene unfolding inside? Outside, the world continued on, blissfully unaware that Leon’s life was coming to an end. It all seemed so unfair, as if nature itself was taunting me with its indifference.

I wanted his suffering to end, this agonizing journey of death to be finalized, yet I wasn’t ready to let him go. Hours later, close to midnight on Friday eve, he took his last breath and slipped away leaving behind an unbearable silence.

Grief washed over me in waves, a hollow ache punctuated by memories that twisted like thorns. As afraid as I was of death, I refused to turn my head away or desert my father. I knew he never liked to be alone, and just as he had cradled me from the moment I was born, I would comfort him in his final moments, even hours after he was gone.

Three hours had passed before the morgue attendants arrived. They were respectful and polite, yet their clinical detachment as they handled him felt surreal and jarring. I did not intend to see this, to witness their routine efficiency in a moment so profoundly intimate. They tagged his ankle, reducing him from a beloved father to a mere name on a label. I couldn’t bear to watch as they wheeled him away, my hands pressed tightly against my ears. I didn’t want to hear the sound of the cold wheels carrying my father out for the last time. Yet, through my anguish, I caught a glimpse of a shadowed figure draped in black, swallowed by the early morning darkness.

As I exited my parents’ home, the sprinkler system unexpectedly sprang to life, dousing me with a strong spray that halted me in my tracks. I looked back at the house, as if it too were weeping, the earth absorbing its tears in mourning. We followed the car carrying him, but as we reached the morgue, the gates opened and the black vehicle continued forward, deepening my ache as I watched my father being transported into that cold, dark place of sorrow. The gates closed behind him, a stark reminder that the living are not allowed to accompany the dead into such spaces. In that moment, the weight of pain and horror crushed me, and I was left feeling traumatized and inconsolable.

Grief is an isolating experience and in the silence that followed, I began to reckon with the depths of this grief. Friends sent messages, some heartfelt, others perfunctory. It felt as though his life with all its richness has been reduced to a fleeting moment of acknowledgement, just a blip. His memorial page remained painfully bare, my obituary rich with descriptions of a man who had given so much to so many, yet so sparse with tributes. This indifference was as chilling as the silence he left behind, starkly highlighting the fragility of human connections in a world increasingly absorbed by superficial pursuits.

Tracing old paths, and finding new meaning (courtney Ilana Levinsky)

My father dedicated his life to helping others, yet in the end, few were there to honor him. I cling to the hope that this will change, that perhaps people are simply taking their time, that they are possibly mourning in their own way. However, those who genuinely intend to pay tribute should understand that, for the family, those words and sentiments are urgent. The pain is immeasurable, and my father, who would never have let his patients wait, should not be made to wait to be remembered.

In the days that followed I was overwhlemed by conflicting impulses: one moment I would be frantically trying to preserve his memory, and in the next, a haunting emptiness would consume me as if he were fading faster than I could hold on.

Taking in the beauty of fall, Buffalo, NY (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

There were moments that felt like cosmic significance–occurrences that seemed to reach from beyond the veil of death, almost like lifelines in my grief. On the morning we spoke with the rabbi about funeral arrangements, a murder of crows swept down from the sky, darkening the air with an intensity that made us stop mid-sentence. I had never seen them so close, so assertive. The birds seemed to honor the occasion, an acknowledgement from nature itself of the loss we had suffered.

Later, while walking around my parents’ neighborhood, a man with a tiny dog passed by. My mom asked for the dog’s name. “Chuchi” the man replied, and I froze. Chuchi was my father’s nickname for me when I was a child, something I have not thought of in years. The man explained that in Native American dialect it means “dog.” And yet in that moment it felt like a message, as if my father were there, sending me whispers of comfort across the void.

During one sleepless night, I googled my father’s name and came across a character named Leon Levinsky in a Jack Kerouac novel The Town and the City. But I was struck by the strange coincidence. I ordered the book immediately, desperate for anything that might connect me to him in this world without him.

The Mountain Fire that ravaged our neighborhood (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

In the days after as I moved through my routine, I still found myself reaching out to share things with my father. I wanted to tell him about the mountain fire that had consumed fifty percent of our neighborhood, a blaze so vast that it engulfed our home too, yet miraculously it survived. The flames reduced the land where we had planned his memorial to a charred unrecognizable landscape. The irony wasn’t lost on me–how he would have found such destruction deeply moving, he would have so much to say about it. But he’s not here. The rolling hills, once green were now ash, and even the land seemed to mourn, marked forever by forces neither of us could control.

Leon and Tamar Levinsky, The Beginning (courtesy Ilana Levinsky)

I realize now that the material pursuits we chase, the wealth and status we covet, all fall away at the brink of death. My father never cared for superficial values. What truly endures is love, laughter, and moments shared. Leon Levinsky was more than a healer, he was a poet–a man of warmth and wisdom who became a community actor, an avid cyclist, and a fisherman who found peace in simple things like casting a line with my mother Tamar at ponds in Buffalo and beyond. The weekly Shabbat dinners were legendary, eight-course meals that included singing, poetry reading and always reminiscing about life in South Africa, England, and Israel. His legacy deserves to be remembered and celebrated, a testament to a life that mattered deeply.

To honor him, I am determined to share his poetry—words that capture his brilliance, his humanity, and the spirit that touched so many. Writing was perhaps an inherited gift, passed down from his own father, who published Yiddish short stories in South African Jewish communities. My father’s poems offer glimpses into his inner life and spirit, allowing him to live on through his words. As I move forward, I carry with me his love and the enduring lessons he imparted, a reminder of all the gifts that remain, even in the absence of his presence.

This will be the first piece I’ve ever written that my father will not read. For as long as I can remember, he was my first reader, a careful witness to my words. No story, no essay, no fleeting idea went unshared with him. He was always my sounding board, offering gentle critique, occasionally some teasing, but always the warm encouragement that only a father can give. His eyes would linger on the page, his fingers tracing lines as he read—sometimes pausing to debate a word choice or ponder a memory my words had triggered in him. There was comfort in knowing that my words would reach him first, before anyone else, and perhaps I wrote them that way, hoping they might spark his laughter or his nod of quiet approval.

As I grapple with the loss, I find a strange comfort in knowing my father will be remembered by people who loved him, and countless strangers whose lives he healed as well as newcomers who will find solace in his words and his poetry.

Yet he was also “my” heart mender—someone whose presence filled my life with warmth, strength, and boundless love. In his absence, my heart swells with pride for all he was, even as it breaks with grief for all that he will no longer be.

I miss you aba.

Snippets of Memory by Leon Levinsky can be ordered on Amazon.

Link:

https://shorturl.at/izJr5