Monday, June 19, 2017

One Last Tribute To My Trailblazing Mother Helen Freedhoff

The last week was an incredibly difficult one with our family reeling from the sudden and unexpected death of my mother.

During the course of the week I reached out to Hilda Bastian as I felt that as a fellow trailblazer for women in STEM, she might be interested in my mother's career.

After reading about her, Hilda offered a nearly unbelievable kindness - over the course of her own weekend, Hilda put together a Wikipedia entry for my mother (click here to read it) which I was able to share with my father before having to leave Toronto.

Through his many tears also came, "how lovely, how lovely", and "what a tribute!"

Were my mother still alive, an incredibly modest and private person, she'd have been embarrassed (maybe even mad at me for indirectly facilitating) and might have asked that the entry be removed, but since she's unable to complain, and as I and her family is intensely proud of her accomplishments, consider my sharing them my last opportunity as her son to shake her tree a bit (please also find our eulogies below).

With the shiva over I will slowly be returning to social media and blogging. Will be returning to Twitter and Facebook first, and blogging a touch later. With Jewish mourning, the first 30 days have a special significance and so I'm thinking I'll start blogging again (aside from this post of course) once they're complete part way through July.

[My deep and heartfelt thanks to Hilda for her compassionate kindness and generosity in putting my mother's Wikipedia page together.]