Saying Goodbye to My Favorite Mom

My mom passed away on September 24, 2022. There are a million stories to tell about her life. But today, I'm sharing her eulogy, for those who couldn't be with us to say goodbye last week. As context - my mom had two sons and one daughter -me. I was not her favorite child, but in her last couple of years of life, she started reminding me, I was her favorite daughter. In turn, I told her she was my favorite mom. Somehow in that exchange, we were both sharing that we had done all we could to love one another in this life. And that was a good way to make peace with all we were and all we weren't.

Eulogizing my mother feels impossible. If you knew her, it’s likely you only knew part of her story. One with so many chapters. So many twists and turns. A woman who was never, ever just one thing. As her children, we knew her as a mom, a wife, an immigrant, a rockstar of a jewelry salesperson, a loyal friend, a homemaker, an opinionated sports fan, a survivor, and maybe in her favorite role, as Babi. Which we can pretend is a word for a very, very young grandmother. We were also told she was almost an Olympic volleyball player. Maybe not verifiable, but I’m willing to let the legend live on another generation.

She spoke somewhere between 4-9 languages depending on the day you asked her. Each one somehow a different persona. A different universe of friends and music and culture where she existed. The St. Anthony mom who would make new friends while on long walks through the neighborhood and in the bleachers at baseball games and swim meets.

The ambitious Irena who worked at the bank, the co-op, Apache Plaza, then the Dayton’s legacy of stores. I’m still mad at the co-op experience for ruining chocolate for all of us by bringing carob into our home. The circle of Brazilian friends who crowded into the basement on Silver Lake Road to dance to samba music and eat feijoada. The Polish friends who could share childhood stories of life in Poland after the war. Her Jewish friends who sometimes took up Elijah’s Cup at Passover. And all of the other new immigrant friends she made from Lebanon, India, Egypt, and elsewhere, who bonded together over their shared experiences, and so many who became her chosen family. Of course, when they all converged into our house at once, it was wonderful chaos and when my mom’s smile was probably the biggest.

At the heart of every persona, my mom's deep capacity for love. Often my dad would draw people into their circle, but it was my mom who loved them. She loved her children and her grandchildren to a depth I still can barely fathom. And through many chapters of life, she shared that love as if she was everyone's mom. An ever-extending chosen family. I'm not sure we, collectively, could have ever matched what she gave in return. But we tried.

Her capacity to love and give is even more amazing, considering her hard and horrible start to life - born in a war camp in Siberia during WWII. Then 10 years struggling to return to normal back in the family’s hometown of Lodz and eventually the migration to Brazil, for a better life. The 4 beautiful Lipska sisters went through so much at a young age.

In Brazil, their lives changed significantly. The sisters grew up and spread to the winds. My mom followed a teacher and Peace Corps volunteer she met at the YMCA (playing volleyball) all the way back to Minnesota, where she would be cold for the next 50 years. But she braved this new place, supported by her sister Hermina and Aunt Rena who had already migrated to the US. Then eventually the circle of friends she made in Minnesota. I still am amazed at the spontaneity and love that brought her here. Of all the ups and downs of my parents’ 50 years together, there was always love. And friendship. And of course, the three of us.

So much of this story, Siberia, Poland, Brazil, and well, my childhood, is this story you know through some distant lens. Almost as if it’s about someone else, not your mom. As is the case when you grow up and reset your relationships with your parents, so much more emerges.
The word immigrant becomes more than just your cultural bond or reason to cheer for the Brazilian soccer team. It means understanding that she was a daughter who wandered far from home, to a new country, with the hopes of a great love, and a different life. I understand so much more now how hard that must have been for her. How lonely. How she must have felt obligated to follow in the path set out for her and her children. When my brother Janio was young, she started teaching him Portugese, but a stern call from his teacher expressing concern over his “accent” and she left the language lessons behind.

As we got older, she found her way. Through her work. Her friends. Her confidence grew. I like to think that her yelling the loudest from the stands at a swim meet was her way of saying, I don’t care what you stuffy Americans think of me anymore. Oh and my daughter is going to the Olympics, you know.

Looking back, these struggles make me even more proud of her independence and success. To have started a career at nearly 40 and the effort it must have taken to earn the accolades she did. A bookshelf full of sales awards, tucked away in her spare bedroom. Giving over the summer responsibilities to Ax, who got all the credit for the fun summer roadtrips and adventures, while she worked. It’s harder for kids to remember all those very early years when we were her everything and probably not so easy on her. Because, well, you’ve met us.

Despite that, she forged her own path. Eventually on her own terms. I look through her albums from that time and I feel so happy for what she found in her adventures - the evenings at the Dakota Jazz Club, trips to Mexico, late night parties, a trip to Rome for selling more David Yurman jewelry than anyone else. She was living her best life, in her leather pants and cadillac. Both of which earned grief from her hippie daughter at the time.

In those days before Rayna changed everything, we were in different orbits. Mostly by my choosing. And I only know that version of her in pictures. With maybe the exception of the night she crashed Valentina’s surprise birthday party at Chino Latino.

So thanks Bridget and Davi for starting your family. For making her a Babi. For starting the townhome swimming pool hangouts. For the Sunday football gatherings, even though we all needed earplugs to drown out Davi’s yelling. And for bringing us all together for our new traditions for Passover, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas Eve. Because of your family, our orbits shifted closer together.

It is in these more recent memories that I think I hold my mom closest. Because seeing her at the Apache jewelry counter when I was 12, pales in comparison to seeing her charm everyone at the Dayton’s jewelry counter when I was in my 20s. I developed a pretty solid impression of my mom’s sales pitch, accent included. But without her incredible expertise, threads from the Oval Room, beautiful and exotic jewelry, and oh, those cheekbones, I would have failed immediately in her place. She was so, so good at what she did and even though I wasn’t the world’s best daughter, I made sure she knew I was proud of her. Before starting to nag her incessantly to retire.

Because, like my father, I was a bit of a late bloomer. And when my kiddo came along 8 years ago, I was so glad that my mom was able to be in her life. My mom’s love for her grandkids was more immense than I could describe. She couldn’t get enough of them. Especially when they were babies and she had the magic touch to rock Emma the Nap Hater to sleep. I know now that this is the same love she had for her own children, before we drifted off from her to grow up.

In the 18 years she was their Babi, she was there for everything she could be. Picking up Rayna on Tuesdays from Robbie Newberg’s daycare so Davi could fulfill his Big Brother duties. Babysitting Rayna and Calum so Bridget and Davi could get out of the house. Showing up to tee ball, swim meets, hockey games, plays, and concerts. She wanted to be there for everything. Even when Emma started exploring her own little life, my mom wanted to be there for swim lessons and tumbling. She even became our plus one New Year’s Eve date on more than one occasion.

In the final years, she still had the will, but Covid isolation and her failing body made it harder. So we came to her. And Emma spent hours by her side, trying on jewelry, listening to music, sharing stories, and even watching Fiddler on the Roof. One of my favorite photos is of Emma on the arm of my mom’s chair, practicing Portuguese on Duo Lingo. And my mom is only partially paying attention to the language lesson, most entirely enthralled with holding Emma’s feet, as she did when she was a baby, and trying to take in every inch of that moment and connection with her dear bubula. Those were some of the hardest days and some of the most precious memories.

But I believe it was enough for her to imprint on their lives. Emma walks around the house in her jewelry and talks about all the beautiful things Babi loved. The Thanksgiving pie baking traditions will carry on. We will think of her when we sing along to Neil Diamond or Barbara Streissand songs. We will all remain Team Brazil sports fans. And we will all remember her epic smacktalking when it’s time for Christmas Eve crab legs.

There is a lifetime of memories. There were more than a fair share of hard moments mixed in with all the sassy, funny, beautiful, inspiring ones.

I have this card here from my mom, appropriately on Marshall Field’s stationery. It was a birthday card. And my mom wrote, Nina, if you know how much I love you, the whole world knows.

I didn’t at the time. I do now. So all the evidence that her legacy was love. And that is forever.