In a raw and deeply personal speech delivered at the cemetery, Lucy’s close friend Danja Keesing related an amusing story about how her friend convinced her to wake up in time to take an exercise class together early Sunday mornings.
“Sunday mornings, I liked you least of all, I have to admit. Actually, I didn’t like you at all. No one is perky on Sunday morning after Shabbos... besides Lucy.”
Lucy’s enthusiasm eventually won Keesing over. “That is your essence, Lucy: believing in others – maybe even many times more than you ever believed in yourself.”
Later she declared, “You loved so, so hard; tried so, so hard. Had so many love and care goals as a wife and a mother that sometimes I thought to myself, ‘What is the intensity? What is the rush? Breathe. Take less to heart. Don’t work so hard. Don’t try so hard.’
“Now I know that your soul knew that what others do in 70, 80, or 90 years, you had to do in less than 50.”
The evening memorial program also featured a siyum (conclusion celebration) on Mishna made by Maia’s friends, and words of Torah in Hebrew from Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi. The evening ended with a group sing-along, filled with songs about Moshiach (Messiah) and redemption led by Shlomo Katz, who is a musician and rabbi of Shirat David in Efrat.
