This week has been one of the hardest and most emotional weeks of my life.
It has only been a week since we buried my mom and sat shiva. In my work, I walk alongside families during these moments all the time. I know the traditions. I know the logistics. I know how important they are. But I have always experienced them from the other side. This time, I was the daughter.
Speaking at my mom’s funeral was something completely outside my comfort zone. Public speaking has never been my favorite thing, especially when my emotions are so close to the surface. But I am incredibly grateful that I did it. The number of people who have reached out afterward to tell me how much the speech meant to them has touched me more than I can say.
When I thought about how I wanted to honor my mom, I realized I didn’t want to talk about her accomplishments. I wanted to talk about what she built.
She built a home.
Not just a house, but a feeling.
Her greatest gift was creating a place where people belonged. Family gathered there. Friends gathered there. Traditions were created there. Food was always part of it, but the meals were never the point. They were simply the vehicle that brought people together.
One of the greatest lessons she taught us was that no one should be alone for Shabbat or the holidays. There was always room for one more person at the table. If someone didn’t have somewhere to go, you invited them. If someone was visiting from out of town, you made them a meal. Her home was open because she believed that sharing food was really about creating connection.
As I’ve reflected this week, I’ve realized how much that shaped the work I do today.
People often think catering is about food. It isn’t.
It’s about helping families celebrate, comfort one another, gather, laugh, cry, remember, and create memories. We simply have the privilege of providing the food that helps those moments happen. Looking back now, I can clearly see where that passion came from.
I also spoke at the funeral about my synagogue and what our community has meant to generations of my family.
Throughout shiva, we experienced that community in ways I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
Walking into the funeral and seeing chairs being added to the back of the sanctuary because so many people came filled my heart. I love seeing our sanctuary full. It reminded me of what it looked like when I was a child.
Then there was shiva.
People came from CBINT, ASKT, MJDS, and so many other parts of our community. Friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbors—people whose lives my mom had touched and people whose lives ours had become intertwined with over the years.
We laughed.
We cried.
We told stories.
We spread out old photographs and tried to identify everyone in them. It made me realize how many stories I wish I had asked my mom to tell. I wish I had known who every face was and what memories each picture held.
At the same time, I watched connection after connection unfold around the room.
People discovered they had known one another decades earlier. My aunt recognized someone who had moved to Milwaukee years after she had left and somehow their paths had crossed. Friends found mutual connections I never knew existed. One evening I found myself saying Kaddish alongside a friend observing the yahrzeit of his wife, another reminder of how our traditions continue to connect us across generations and through life’s hardest moments.
That’s what struck me most throughout the week.
Connection.
I think of shiva as a cocoon.
For seven days you are surrounded by love, support, stories, meals, hugs, prayers, and people who simply show up. Then, when it ends, there is a sadness that settles in because that cocoon is gone.
But I’ve come to realize that maybe it isn’t really gone.
The visitors stop coming. The chairs get folded up. Life begins moving again. Yet the love that surrounded us doesn’t disappear. The friendships remain. The community remains. The people remain.
That support is still there.
One moment from the day of the funeral will stay with me forever. After the meal and before shiva officially began, I slipped upstairs and lay down on my parents’ bed. I just needed a quiet moment.
Then my sister came in.
Then my children.
Then my niece.
Then our cousins.
No one said very much. We simply gathered together.
As I looked around the room, one thought kept coming back to me.
My mom would have absolutely loved seeing all of us there together.
She spent her entire life building that.
This week reminded me that perhaps our greatest legacy isn’t what we accomplish.
It’s the people we bring together.
It’s the friendships we nurture.
It’s the traditions we continue.
It’s the communities we help build.
And if there is one gift my mom gave all of us, it was showing us how to create places where people feel they belong.
For that, and for the incredible love and support our family has felt this past week, I will be forever grateful.
