Hello.
I want to begin by thanking everyone for joining us here all the way in Skokie on this beautiful sunny Sunday. Thank you to those who traveled and made efforts to be here, I really appreciate it. But jokes aside, my Mom only dies once, ya know, so it's the least you could do? She would be very pleased to see this much orange and, I think, tickled to know how much energy was put into what I’ll appropriately call “Mom’s final act as hostess.”
In this room, I’m surrounded by a huge variety of people. Some may have sparingly or never even met my mom, some shared close friendships with our family for at least 20 years, and some may be somewhere in between. Whatever your connection to Olga, if you’re joining us tonight, it is because my mom, or someone who loves my mom, means something to you. Thank you.
For most people here, close friends and even family, the news of Mom’s passing was, at minimum, a complete shock. The news that Mom was even sick at all was a surprise, especially for those who maintained relationships with her or who normally only got the chance to witness her in social settings. “Wow, I had no idea she was sick,” many have said.
I know. That’s because my mom was seriously just really good at playing pretend. In fact, she even had me fooled a lot of the time. We all believed that somehow, against the odds of an aggressive and bleak diagnosis, she would just kind of…end up alright. She would be the anomaly, the outlier crushing statistics. Because obviously, that was my Mom. Who else would show them what she’s made of if not her? Ne dajdyotiz suki.
I learned the hard way that it doesn’t quite work that way. The fact that my dad did anything and everything the medical and holisitic world had to offer to extend her life and its quality, that her babies still need her here, that she was so special and amazing and so young and so on and so forth, doesn’t matter to cancer. It didn’t know it was my mom and it didn’t care. No amount of love could have made her well or could now bring her back. So if you think you’re the only person who was blindsided by this adult concept or her secrecy in one way or another, I promise you’re not.
In all her grandeur and fluorescence, if you had the privilege to know her well enough, you’d agree that she was actually a very private person. It didn’t come as a surprise the way she was able to keep up appearances for herself, to continue living, to put a smile on and say “Hello” in the face of death.
I think she just really didn’t want to be seen and certainly didn’t want to be remembered in the shadow of words like “sick” and “cancer.” And who would want to be reduced to that?
We can say she was “heroic” and “brave” and so so “strong.” And I agree, she was. She was the strongest, it was actually insane watching her. She literally never complained. She never showed her pain. She never gave up, not even in the end. And I personally believe that she orchestrated her death, as she did with life, that it was her last piece as an artist. What a performance and All by design. My dad, sleeping feet away from her on a cot, everyone else safe in bed. She left peacefully, quietly, like a cat in the night, dignified, independent, and oh-so sneaky.
But calling her all these empowering adjectives doesn’t really shed light on what cancer or getting sick is. What it really does to a person and to their family. Or, in our case, what it tries to do.
I will explain it to you now as simply as I can: For two years, my Mom fought something that worked very hard to erase her. I will never let that happen.
I want it to be known that she did not lose a battle. She had already won the whole game.
As far as I know you get one shot at this thing and man, she took it. And as far as stories go, my mom wrote a better one with her eyes closed and her hands tied while everyone else was still out looking for a pen.
She achieved so many of her dreams, her kids being her proudest accomplishment. She left grateful, smart, and kind children, full of grit and ready to carry the torch. She was proud of everything we did, told everyone about it, and confided in me on several occasions that she was not at all worried about how we would turn out. “Oh, you, you’ll be fine without Mama,” she said.
She left her art and evidence of her existence, everywhere. I am living proof of that vision. She built a house with my dad - no small task - and managed to imbue it entirely with her spirit. She traveled the world with my dad, her lifelong best friend, the cosmic duo that they are, and took her funny clan of beloved minions along. She protected us with the animalistic ferocity of a fox. She purposefully crafted a life for us that was so full and and fantastical, and we knew it, and we made sure she knew it when she was here, and I’ll make sure everyone knows it too now that she’s gone.
She made every bad thing go away with a kiss, with a lullaby, with a soft stroke of her hand.
She left no bitter taste behind. No regret. She left trails of honey and a sing-song voice on repeat and peonies and the color orange and a warm, everlasting glow to everything she touched. She was the love of my dad’s life and I told her over and over again how thankful I was that she picked him to be my dad instead of some other shmuck. She was a role model for fortitude, self-expression, confidence, and grace. She left this kind of an impression on people, the kind that fixates and anchors you in her dust, mouth wide open, full surrender, breathing in every drop of her essence. She left such a vivid memory and gave such a grand performance - one that didn’t require her body, a simple vessel, to hang around for the applause.
Sometimes she seemed to be from another planet, like our rules didn’t apply, and she acted like it! In her elegant, alien way, she bowed and curtsied with her face turned to the sky. She danced in the desert, in our bedrooms, in the ocean, she sang our names through the stairwell, she laughed until she warned us that somebody would end up crying. And what I think is most important - she tasted true freedom on several occasions.
We all die. Even me, me who many of you saw in diapers. me who now stands before you, a cosplayed, uncanny amalgamation of my mom’s greatest and probably worst hits.
It all becomes a little funnier and easier when you remember that, doesn’t it? What a blessing it is to know her blood runs in mine. To have been her little bunny, hopping in her foot steps. I know we will have big shoes to fill. Thank God Mom left us so many.
Good luck to whoever has to follow this speech up.
Rebecca Levitin
April 16, 2024
