February 19, 2011 My Beloved Daughter Gina: I want to be in New Jersey today, sharing memories of you with your friends and members of our families. Regretfully, doctors’ felt it too high risk for me to fly across country so soon following surgery and ongoing rehab. I have written you many letters over our shared lifetime. This will be the first since your death, but I’m sure it won’t be the last, as I struggle to learn how to live without you in my life. Gina, I had never before experienced such joy as that I felt at your birth. I was fortunate just two years later to welcome Evan to our family, with feelings of that same magnitude. I have had innumerable moments of happiness and profound pleasure over the near 46 years since you entered my life, but most trace back earliest to that March 19, 1965, day you were born. I have a treasure-trove of memories of times shared with you. Your milestones, as well as the blossoming of your “growing up” years. (I sometimes thought those were my “growing up” years, too!) And then the time of our coming to know and value each other as adults – a tricky transformation of roles. Often I yearned to live closer to you geographically so that we could spend more time together, but recognize that I always encouraged your independence, as well as cherished my own. Someday I may actually get the boxes of photos I have from your childhood, youth, university, Med School, and adult years sorted and into albums, but maybe not. All those pictures and memories, including not only our lives at home, but our travels together to visit family around the U.S. and to over a dozen countries around the world – as well as our cats and dogs. While life seems linear, and is, in a clock-work, calendar sense, I have found the dynamic of skipping around past years as reminders get shaken and jumbled together in those cardboard boxes to have great merit. It’s not photos nor particular adventures, but rather the learning, laughter, getting to know one another and reinforcing friendships they remind of that are important to me. My dearest daughter, I have been an imperfect mother, but I have loved you beyond description, more than I can begin to measure. I hope beyond all that you felt my love every day of your life. Since your infancy I have respected and admired your quiet and formidable intelligence; your persistent, sometimes quirky curiosity; your drive to learn and willingness to work hard; and your integrity, fairness and willingness to play by the rules. There has not been a day in our lives that I have not been both proud of you – and proud for you. From your early years you evidenced a strong respect for friendship and cultivated and nurtured lifelong relationships. You were committed to using your professional skills to help better the lives of women who have been less advantaged than you. You displayed neither prejudice nor bias regarding race, gender, sexual preference, or religion, as evidenced in your friendships and professional choices. I applaud and honor you. You were a gentle and loyal friend to many. And, oh how I will miss the little chuckle before you broke out into laughter, most recently as we watched together John Stewart, a mutual favorite of ours. There is an adage that gives voice to what I have been feeling keenly every day since your death, my daughter: To lose a child is to lose a piece of yourself. While I lost an irreplaceable piece of myself on January 25, 2011, the day of your death, you inspired and challenged me throughout every day of your life. I pledge to you to respect those things I learned from you, honor those values we shared, and to the best I’m able, to expand your legacy of helping others. I’ll write more next time. My tears today are still close and raw. Love from your Mom