My mom passed away on July 16, 2025. This is the eulogy I gave for her at the funeral on July 18, 2025. You can find her legacy page here.

Hi everyone. Thank you for coming today and being here to remember my mom. I thought that perhaps the best way to remember her in this eulogy would be to remember the things she loved and the things she hated. It’s impossible to capture an entire person’s life in a 10 minute eulogy, but I thought if we looked at things that filled her heart, and the things that drove her up the wall, perhaps we can get a small glimpse at who she was, and maybe get a few laughs and tears along the way. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll alternate between the things my mom loved, and the things my mom hated.

My mom loved kids. Of course she loved her own kids, but really, she loved all kids. Her face would light up any time she saw a child, whether a family member, or a random kid on the street, and she was never happier than when holding and mothering a baby.

My mom hated clutter. Her house was always spotless. Nothing on the floors, nothing on the counters, everything in its spot. Until Molly and I got home. We would drive her nuts when we’d come home and throw our stuff all over the floor. My mom was the kind of person who would clean the house before the cleaners came over. You can’t have guests in your home when it’s dirty, right?

My mom loved to shop. Buying clothes for herself, buying clothes for me, buying stuff for the house, scoring the best deals. Many of us are wearing stuff my mom bought us right now. It was a pastime for her, to the extent where Linna, when she was a bit smaller, used to say that her grandma lived in the town of “Marshallshead.”

My mom hated when you wore the wrong thing. I am not what you would call a fashionable dresser, and my mom would always let me know it. Sometimes, she was subtle about it, buying me new clothes, in the hopes I might wear them and look less like an idiot. Sometimes, she was less subtle about it. I’d walk out of my room, and she’d look me up and down, form a little frown between her eyes, and say “Are you really going to wear that?” And it wasn’t just me. She had to make sure that her entire family looked presentable, no matter what was happening. Several weeks ago, my mom was feeling dizzy and fatigued, her heart rate was high, her blood pressure was low, and she couldn’t get out of bed. We had to call 911 and to get an ambulance out to bring her to the ER. While waiting for the ambulance, my dad came into the bedroom to make sure my mom was ready to go, and my mom looked over, and she looked over at him, sat up, and, barely able to lift her head off the pillow, she said, “Are you really going to wear that shirt to the hospital?”

My mom loved to feed you. It wasn’t just that she was a great cook, it was that she had a passion for finding out what each person liked, and she would make sure to have that dish ready when you came over. Every time Molly came over, my mom would make chicken wings; every time Isaak came by, she’d make fried potatoes; she’d make bean salad for Nathan, chicken cutlets for Linna, zucchini fritters for Serge, lamb for Larisa, apple pie for Eugene, vatrushka for my dad. It was her love language. One special dish mom always made for me was salted salmon. Every time I came home, she’d have one portion of salmon ready to eat in the fridge, and several more portions in the freezer, ready for later. The other day, I finished the portion of salmon in the fridge, and went to the freezer to get the next portion, as usual, but there was no more.

My mom hated it when you didn’t eat. She’d sit at the dinner table and keep meticulous records in her head of who ate what. If there was a dish on the table that you didn’t try, she would know it, and she would let you know. My favorite thing was when someone new would come over, who had never been fed by my mom before, and they would fall into the classic trap. They would see the giant spread on the table, with dozens of dishes. They would eat and eat, and with my mom’s prodding, try every dish, and then they would eat some more, and stuff themselves silly, until they were beyond full, leaning back, belly hanging out, belt loose, and barely able to breathe from eating so much. And that’s when my mom would stand up and say, “OK, I’ll set out the second course.” Which, of course, would be something heavy like meat and potatoes. Oh the look on their faces when they realized there was a whole lot more coming.

My mom loved to travel. There’s a quote attributed to Saint Augustine, where he said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” By that standard, my mom was very well read. She’s been all over the world, and she adored sharing those trips with her kids. I still remember her taking me around Disney World in the scorching heat, as we ate giant turkey drumsticks; in Austria, we shared sacher torte and apfelstrudel; in Holland, we saw windmills, clogs, and giant cheese wheels; in Australia, we saw koalas and kangaroos, snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef, and saw Uluru at sunrise in the Outback; and even in the final years of her life, she managed to make it to France, Germany, Ireland, NYC, Princeton, and her final trip, in some sort of twist of fate, was back to Latvia, where she was born.

My mom hated when her kids traveled. It wasn’t really the travel she hated—she wanted us to have fun and see the world—but she was always worried that something would happen along the way. My mom was a worrier. No matter how old we were, every time we’d fly somewhere, as soon as we touched down, we’d have to text her “just landed.” Otherwise, my mom would worry. Every time my sister drives from my parents’ house to her house, across a terrifying distance of 30 miles, she has to let my mom know that she’s arrived safely. Otherwise, my mom will worry. It’s like that classic joke about the telegram to the Jewish mother: “Begin worrying. Details to follow.”

My mom loved her family. She told me over and over that family was the most important thing in life. And she lived by that principle. She was willing to do anything for her family. That included abandoning her entire life—her job, her home, her friends, everything—to move to the US, and start essentially from zero, all so her kids could have an opportunity at a better life. Somehow, mom and dad pulled it off. They lived the American dream. They worked hard. They bought a house. They put two kids through college. And as a totally unbiased party, I think I can say that we, her kids and grandkids, thanks to what she did, turned out OK.

My mom hated exercise and medicine. Every time I’d suggest that she get some exercise, she’d say, “but I might start sweating!” As if that was the worst thing imaginable. She’d never do it. Unless, it was for her family. She fought the cancer, took all the medicine, suffered through all the treatments, and did all the exercises, not for herself, but because she wanted more time with her family. She even thought of us as her medicine. Every time I’d fly back from Ireland, my mom would say, “My medicine is coming home today.”

My mom loved the people here. I think more than anything, she loved to make the people around her happy. She loved to fill our stomachs with food, our ears with stories, and our hearts with love. So as odd as it sounds, perhaps the best way for us to honor my mom today is to be happy. It’s not easy at a time like this, but maybe if we share our memories of her, share our stories, talk about what she loved and hated, laugh together, and cry together, perhaps, given time, we can be happy, and I think my mom would’ve loved that most of all.