In Memoriam: Rita Baskin

Rita Baskin (April 15, 1931-February 24, 2008) died from internal injuries, three days after a car crash in Palm Springs FL. Her funeral service was held at Riverside Gordon Memorial Chapels west of Delray Beach and she was interred in the Wellwood Cemetery in Pinelawn, Long Island NY. A rnold Baskin walked away but still feels like he lost his life. She and her husband Arnold, would have celebrated 58 years of marriage on March 25, 2008. The two met at a Catskills bungalow colony in New York when Arnold was a big band trumpeter and she was visiting. Rita Baskin was a teacher before retiring and moving from Long Beach, N.Y. to Florida in 1998. She loved numbers, traveling and Chinese food, and visited her sons and grandchildren in Israel every year.The following is the eulogy that

My mom was our anchor, our rock. She was what gave us a sense of security and order in our lives. She kept us centered. She always helped to steer us in the right direction. She inspired us with her love of life and her desire to live it to its utmost.

She made us feel proud of ourselves. She made me feel proud of myself, and the more I thought that I resembled her, the more pride I felt in myself. She taught us to be independent. That was so important to her, even if sometimes she admitted that she wished she hadn’t been so successful in that area – maybe we wouldn’t be living so far away if we had been brought up just a bit more dependent.

But she was so proud of us. She spared no words to share her emotions. She spread her love to us with no limits. She was always there, and now she’s not.

I simply cannot imagine a world without her in it. As I walk around her home, every spot I look at has her touch. She thought of everything. Every detail had her thoughts behind it. Her tender loving care is everywhere.

As we sat at the dinner table last evening, I thought to myself, if Mom was here she would never have allowed us to have the rye bread stay in a bag on the table, it would have been placed out neatly in a dish bought by mom that would have been perfect for rye bread – and we would have all sat at the beautiful table with mom beside us and none of us would have thought for a second about how she thought about everything.

She was so good, so caring, so tolerant, so loving. I always had a special relationship with mom. When I was young we would always find excuses just to spend more time together – shopping, cooking, enjoying a good meal together. Our special pleasure was to enjoy a Chinese meal together. Mom and I shared the same passion for Chinese food, almost the same passion that we each found in other areas – for me, Israel and politics, for mom, numbers and finances.

When she was a teacher, I used to love to visit her classroom. I knew she was the best teacher in the school by the way the other teachers treated her and looked up to her and by the way her students felt so lucky to have her as their teacher. And they truly were. She gave her all in everything she did.

She so inspired me in my life. She was the living example of integrity. She showed right from wrong and good from bad, not with words, but by the way that she lived. She was real, genuine, honest, she was direct. She was a terrible liar and she knew it, she had no poker face, and she knew that she couldn’t get away with it, so she lived by the rule of honesty.

The most difficult moments of my life were shared with mom. She was who I turned to when I needed comforting. She would listen to me and know just what to say. Her advice was always sound, also so rational, and always so compassionate.

When I became politically involved, she encouraged me. When I got involved with Israel, she supported. Whatever I wanted to do, mom was there to back me, to guide, to question sometimes, to challenge, but always to support me. Her opinion was always important to me. I valued what she had to say. Her intelligence and sound wisdom was priceless. And I saw how often and how many people solicited her opinion.

I know as a parent the pride that children can provide. I know how proud I am of my three children. I also know how much pleasure they gave to mom. I got such pleasure from the pleasure she got from my children. Her relationship with Elisha, mom and I often confessed, reminded both of us of the relationship I had with her as I was growing up.

When I saw Elisha or heard about Elisha crawling up on savta’s bed to talk to her heart-to-heart, it so reminded me of the many times I did the same as I was growing up. Mom was always there. She always knew what to ask, or what to say. She could read me like a book – from cover to cover. I could hide nothing from her.

I was so glad that mom, at her initiative of course, made sure to spend good quality time with my boys as well. Ben and Amit had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with mom and dad and to develop their own special relationships. I am so sad that they have had so few years to appreciate her, to love her and to be loved by her.

She had so much life in her and so much more living to do. We were just planning to meet in Miami where I will be speaking later this month. We were planning our family trip for pesach time. Mom was always planning, always doing, always on the go always thinking of the many tomorrows ahead of us that will never be.

When she left us, a huge void was created that can never be filled. Her absence will always be felt, the pain created by her being taken away from us so tragically and so suddenly will accompany us for the rest of our lives. We can only be comforted, in part, by the wonderful memories that we have of her. Her words, her hugs, her thoughtful eyes, her stories, her advice, her concerns, her dreams for herself and for us all, she was so much bigger than words, and what we have left of her are words to remind us of her greatness and the words of all of those who shared her love.