I once saw an embroidered pillow in someone’s home that read, “A good friend walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” The phrase resonated with me, and to this day I remember it. In the last year, one of the hardest in my life, you would think that the phrase became my reality; in some ways it has, but for others in the same circumstances, it hasn’t.

In a set of very unfortunate events, my mother passed away suddenly, and ten days later I gave birth to my first child. Here I was mourning my mother and at the same time celebrating the birth of a child who I never thought would be named after my mother. You can’t imagine the words that come out of people’s mouths while I sat shiva nine months pregnant. The words of one acquaintance of my father reverberate in my mind again and again. He approached me with pity in his eyes and said, “It’s a shame your mother will never see the baby.”