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It’s April and it is as hectic as ever. There’s at least one birthday to celebrate each day for the next two weeks and on most days, at least two. There are plenty of celebrations but today I miss mom a little more than on the other 364 days. I miss her stories that went on 247 tangents. I miss her stuffed cabbage and her borscht. I miss her laughter as she was in the middle of another anecdote fitting for the occasion. I miss her protectiveness of me. I miss her candor. I miss her book recommendations. I miss her telling me “no” and me actually listening. I miss her newspaper clippings that had information about just about everything from the latest exhibits at the Met, the newest play on Broadway, the best way to make some classic salad, new aphorisms to use at the next occasion or birthday card, and where to buy the latest trends on sale. I miss her unconditional and limitless love. I miss our shopping trips. I miss her hugs. I miss all of her.

My mom loved life and not only celebrated it, she embraced it! She held on to it with both hands even when one was swollen from lymphedema that made her disbalanced. She did it with a full heart as she dished out advice to her friends even when they were halfway around the world. She had an in incomparable zest for life and all of its pleasures and heartbreaks. At seventeen, she, a Jewish girl from Ukraine made it all the way to St. Petersburg Institute of Culture (via Chelyabinsk). She’s told me many stories of her youth and her travels, but I wasn’t old enough to really listen or care too much at the time. I was only 25 when she left and I’d give a lot to hear them now. Sometimes, I get lucky.  Last year, I found an art book with a dedication to mom expressing what a great friend she’s been and was able to connect with the artist’s daughter. This past year, a friend from my mom’s youth travel group found me via Facebook because he saw “Lera’s eyes.”  We spoke for over an hour and I took notes on the stories he told me of their wild trip across the Volga River, all her idea, of course. One of the most interesting things he told me was mom’s innate spirituality and ability to see the true meaning of things. 

I LOVE hearing these stories. If you read this and you remember something, please share.    They give me strength to hold me over for another year. She was brave, intuitive, funny, fun-loving, smart, adventurous well-read, fashionable, resilient, to name but a few. Her life should be celebrated because she was many things to many people and I hope that those that new her keep her memory in their hearts, but only to me, was she mommy. 

HBD mamochka, wherever your soul may roam ❤️

How about a "National Day of Love?"

We may have Valentine's Day, but it's become way too commercialized and polluted by cheap chocolate and overpriced flowers.  I'm talking about a day where we come together and "love thy neighbor." A day where we celebrate our differences and traditions.  A day where we understand that ultimately most people regardless of race, creed, color, religion or any other denomination all want to raise our children under peaceful skies with food, shelter and education. Why is it the fringe that always has the upper hand? Why do they scream the loudest? Why do we listen?

A group of Neo-Nazis has called February 25, a National "Day of Hate." Besides sounding cringeworthy, what kind of moral standards must one have to celebrate hate? Today is also a year since Russia has launched its offensive on my birth country of Ukraine.  There will be no peace for any of us while such grotesque ideologies rule the masses. We must ALL stand up to hate and spread light.  As Jews around the world light candles and gather around the table for Shabbat, let's focus on spreading love and joy.  The world is full of miracles.  As Martin Luther King Jr. once famously said, "I have decided to stick to love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

Shabbat Shalom! Peace, Love and Light! 🕊💙🕯🕯

Hopeful and Idealistic

Like most 20-somethings, I used to be “hopeful and idealistic”. At the same time, life taught me to plan ahead. One morning, at 22, I awoke to find myself with a nearly completed masters degree, a career path (that at the time I didn’t know wasn’t going to pan out) and an engagement ring. I still remember that morning and I think that on that day, something inside me changed. Perhaps, it was the first time I really took an inventory of my life and decided that I’m meant for something bigger. Almost 20 years later, somewhere deep inside, I think that I still believe this.  

All of this has been layered by the mundaneness of life - of loss, of unfulfilling jobs, of lost friendships, of children being born, of travel, of cooking dinner, of folding laundry, of new friendships, of school drop off, of PTA meetings, of learning, of questioning, of landing back to square one, of starting over, of rereading emails, of new blog posts, of shabbos candle lighting, of all the in-between. As part of my always ongoing self-development, I recently had a natal chart prepared and the astrologer described me as “Executive by day and shaman by night.” Cue song, “I’m a dreamer". As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to fill my life with more than material objects - with causes that speak to me, with books, with plays, with purpose, with interesting people that question the number 42 as much as I do. Don’t get me wrong, I still want the nice shoes, but as predicted, they are less important now (and a lot more expensive)!

So what about those hopes and dreams? They are still there, but they are overshadowed by the future I want to create not just for myself anymore, but for my children. I want to raise them to be smart and kind.  I want them to be fun and inquisitive.  I hope that they will become gentlemen and most importantly I want them to be blessed - blessed with good health and with aging parents, blessed with true friends and meaningful work, blessed with a deep love and family. I wish for them to have many hopes and dreams and to pursue them, always.  Mine have evolved. The steps that I take to achieving many of them have gotten slower, shorter, but more confident.  I'm certain that they will continue to evolve and be intertwined with those of my boys.  For now, I'll try to keep writing, to keep dreaming and to keep working on self-development.  My ideals will remain, for it is hope after all that dies last.

The Importance of Telling People How You Feel...

For My Boys, I love you to infinity and beyond

Today marks 30 years since my parents packed up their lives into several suitcases and moved across the Atlantic - to New York. It's hard to imagine for me the hardships that they had to go through in order to make this journey; it will be even harder for my children to understand.  They didn't just leave jobs or apartments or friends - they left their whole lives. They came to this country with no language, no transferable skills, a few hundred dollars for a family of 4 and a loan to HIAS.  

Through a LOT of hard work, all kinds of work - cleaning houses, delivering business cards, removing asbestos, they managed to put food on the table, buy an apartment and raise me, all the while my mom was battling stage 4 cancer.  As a cancer survivor myself, I can confidently say that treatment and taboos surrounding it have come a very long way in 30 years, but I digress.  My parents' support system here in the states was limited - all of their closest friends either immigrated to Israel or elsewhere. Others remained in the now former USSR. They worked so much with my mom's treatments sprinkled in between that it was hard to make friends, but my mom did anyway.  She made friends in Chemo and with her doctors. She made friends in her NYANA English class and with the owner of the Russian (speaking) store where we shopped. Long distance calling was expensive, so she would always find some deals on calling cards to call her friends all around the globe.  She always called.  She remembered not only birthdays of her friends, but of their children and later their grandchildren.  The weekend before she passed, she literally called everyone. This August, it will be 14 years, and I don't think I've fully forgiven her for not saying goodbye to me.

In a goodbye to my mom, one of the closest friends wrote an article commemorating their friendship and the unique person that Lera, Lilya, Leonora was. Every so often I reread it and find some interesting tidbit, some new discovery. Sometimes the discoveries come from other places like discovering an artist who's the daughter of my mom's friend - and later finding a book of the artist's work with the inscription - 

Удивительной Лере, которая не забывает старых друзей.

To extraordinary Lera, who never forgets old friends.

I have a collection of mom's books that I don't know what to do with, but I'm certain that they contain many secrets that maybe someday, with some luck I can uncover.  Today, I've uncovered a friendship from 50 years ago.  It was Emiliya's birthday yesterday and somehow her article floated up on Facebook (one of the reasons I love the platform) and I was granted with the most flattering comment - 

"It was a remarkable time, remarkable place, remarkable group of young people, having crazy courage and unbelievable fun.  You looking alike Lera. Hope you inherited her spirit, energy and sincerity. My best regards to you."

What do you do with a message like that from someone whose name you've never heard? How does one  react? I cried and then I sent him a message. Today, we spoke for an hour and while much of what he shared with me is much too personal to share here, he described my mom as the fountain of ideas and proceeded to tell me a story that took place on the Volga river in 1978. He described her as full of life and a whole person - the embodiment between the intellectual and the spiritual, something that I myself often find in conflict. She, in her 20s at the time, understood the deeper and inner meaning of things.  It is no coincidence that one of the inscriptions on her monument reads, "She did more than exist, she lived. She did more than listen, she understood." He asked me to put a stone down the next time I go.  I will put two - one for him and one for all the others in the photos that carry this in their hearts. They last spoke some 40 years ago as life (for Jews specifically in the USSR) took everyone scrambling across the globe.  It took 40 years to recount a story of youth with the fondest of memories. The story gave me fuel to hold me over until the next such story appears.  However, I'm lucky.  

I had two friends call me this week to praise me on some of the volunteer work that I do.  An older friend reminded me of who I am.  Last month, a friend got me a cake for connecting certain people in their lives. Those types of little things aren't little.  They give us fire beneath our wings, they allow us to fly.  My firm recently brought in Brene Brown to talk about leadership and one of the things she mentioned was that vulnerability is something that we admire most in others and have the hardest time displaying ourselves - "Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage." It took me as much courage to write this as the speech in front of 100 people I promised to give next week.  I often wear my heart on my sleeve. I try to tell show people what they mean to me. I don't always succeed, but as much of my spiritual training has taught me - you can only meet people where they are.  Maybe in 40 years time, they will find my kids on FB (or some other kind of platform) and tell them what I meant to them then.

This is my resolution, not to wait - to tell people what they mean to me - unknowingly I started to this week. This blog used to be called "Random Thoughts," and today I no longer believe in coincidences.  I believe in the serendipitous ebbs and flows of life - life that often gets in the way and takes us all in different directions.  There are “friends for a time and friends for a lifetime” and if you're still reading this, thank you for being a part of it - your love, friendship and kindness do more than I could ever put into words. Here's to the next 30 years in the "land of the free", with peaceful skies, simchas to celebrate, laughter, good company and stories to tell all of our descendants.