“Ma, we need to talk.” Devorah was in my office after the meeting. Blech, I heard her tone — I didn’t want to hear from her after such a great meeting. I wanted to live in the bubble of a job well done.

“The Schonbaums called me — the apartment we set them up in wasn’t clean.”

“Schonbaums?”

“The family with a kid with kidney issues.”

“Right. Why wasn’t it clean?”

“I don’t know. We’re lucky, I have Mandy today, so I drove her to the apartment and had her clean it. It wasn’t that bad, needed like two hours.”

“That was smart of you. Baruch Hashem.” I looked at the pad of notes on my desk; this fundraiser wasn’t going to happen by itself.

“Yeah, but Ma, what’s the usual system for cleaning the apartments? Why did this happen?”

I shrugged. “Rivky took care of it. I’m not sure of her system. Let’s see what we can work out ourselves.”

“You didn’t bring me on to reinvent the wheel. Don’t you have a shared folder with all this stuff?”

“Probably.” That made sense. Rivky would always say, “I’m putting this in SharePoint.” But I never looked. It wasn’t relevant to my part of the work.

“I’m gonna go look through the server.” Devorah sounded peeved.

“That’s my resourceful daughter.”

That got her to smile a little. She left my office and I turned back to donor stuff.

“The Lowingers moved today,” Nachum commented at supper. I took a bite of chicken before answering.

“I know.”

“What happened?”

There was no way to answer this.

I shrugged and stabbed at the green beans on my plate.

Later, as I washed the dishes, I tried to remember the last meeting. What had happened that made Rivky leave? And just like that. It was such a surprise; it made no sense then or now.

We’d been sitting in my office: me, Rivky — and Devorah, because she was joining Tikvah Refuah. Rivky wasn’t too happy about that, I remembered now. She loves Devorah, but I kind of sprang it on her. She was going to come around to it eventually….

Anyway, we were spitballing ideas, a huge bowl of popcorn in the middle and cans of Polar Seltzer in Ruby Red Grapefruit flavor on the side. Rivky was off on the side, and Devorah said something like, “We should invest to systematize our processes, you know. Volunteer schedules, apartment maintenance, which advocates have an in with which doctor — we could use that instead of those spreadsheets that barely anyone can track down or read.”

I responded with an enthusiastic, “Yes! Brilliant,” and looked at Rivky for her take. She looked like death; white, thin lips. “You okay?”

She was quiet for a minute. “I suggested this so many times over the past few years, and now it’s a good idea?”

I didn’t remember her suggesting that. Also, yeah, sometimes good ideas need time to become great ideas. “It’s better timing now,” I said. “The organization’s grown more.”

“I need to go,” Rivky said, standing abruptly. And she did. The next day, she emailed an organization-wide resignation letter and blocked my number.

I’m sorry I didn’t listen to her idea the first time, but seriously?

“Over the years, Tikvah Refuah has helped over 100,000 people. We’ve touched so many families and lives”—a new donor pitch; I was in my element—“…We have an extensive volunteer system. People available to do respite, to drive to and from appointments, to pick patients and families up from the airport. We have people cooking meals in our commercial kitchen and stocking bikur cholim room shelves—”

“What about people who clean the apartments?” Mr. Gruenstein interrupted me.

“Excuse me?”

“The Shonbaums are good family friends. I told them I was meeting with you. They mentioned their little hiccup yesterday.”

What petty people.

“That was just that. A hiccup. A miscommunication that we dealt with.” I kept my tone calm, but I was raging inside.

“Right, right,” Mr. Gruenstein said. He rubbed his chin. I was losing this donor, and it was all Rivky’s fault. I usually had a magic touch with donors, but Rivky’s tentacles had reached me all the way from Lakewood.

Mr. Gruenstein made some noises, said something about our beautiful organization and previous commitments. My heart dropped to my stomach. He pulled out his OJC card. “I assume you can accept this.”

“Sure, I’ll just pull up our site, and you can fill it in.” I smiled as graciously as my taut cheeks allowed.

This was awkward. I handed him the tablet with our site and let him do the rest.

It was quiet in the room, moments dragging in stilted politeness.

“And done.” Mr. Gruenstein handed the tablet back to me. “Keep me in the loop.”

“Of course, tizku l’mitzvos!”

It was finally, blessedly over. Only once I was back in my car did I check his donation amount. $1,000. I sighed. Not nothing, but barely worth my time, and definitely not at keep-in-the-loop level. I pulled my shoulders back and took a deep breath. I’d been doing this long enough; I knew exactly how to play this game. It would be fine — even if Rivky had abandoned me.

“And this is my daughter, Devorah Schindler. She’s taken over Rivky Lowinger’s role.” The hospital board liked these once-a-year meetings, a chance to see what we were doing, feel good about themselves, and make us justify our existence. While I had their attention, I’d ask for more resources.

“Welcome to Cedarwell Hospital. We’re glad to have you as a partner.” The president smiled brightly at Devorah. He turned to me. “We’re going to miss Rivky. She ran a tight ship.”

I sucked in my cheeks. Did they have to say that in front of Devorah? And me?

“She did.” I strained to smile.

Everyone shuffled their papers around their desk. I’d gone to sleep after one in the morning, putting together the presentation. Usually, I talked and Rivky did the clicking. I hadn’t had time to do a run-through with Devorah.

“This past year, Tikvah Refuah served over 150 families from outside the local community…” I started the spiel. There were smiles all around.

Good, good, keep going. You’re almost done.

“We’re forward-thinking, and with Cedarwell’s new pediatric gastroenterology department, I expect more members of the larger Jewish community to come here for Cedarwell’s excellent care. With that in mind, we wanted to expand the current pediatric bikur cholim room into more of a suite, so we can fully support the parents with more amenities.”

Still nodding. But then silence. Were they waiting for something?

“Did you have sketches for what you wanted? Projected budget allotment?” the president finally said.

Oh, gosh, I totally forgot about that. That was usually Rivky’s thing. I was the ideas person.

“Ummm, well… no, not yet. We’d only recently decided on this direction, so we haven’t had the time to flesh everything out. But we thought it was important to come today with a vision. We can always hammer out the details.”

The president looked at other members of the board. He cleared his throat. “Cedarwell is one of the largest hospital systems in the United States. Every inch is accounted for and allocated properly. While I appreciate all the work your organization does, I don’t have time for half-baked ideas and a million follow-ups.” He turned to Devorah. “You have big shoes to fill. Rivky would have sent me the plans before the meeting.”

And we’re back to Rivky. We had talked about this idea for months. Why hadn’t Rivky made plans and given them to me?

“Can I send them to you by the end of the week? Keep this as tight as possible?” I ventured. The end of the week was in three days. It wasn’t enough time, but I had to give us some hope.

The president exhaled like I was inconveniencing him. I was. “That’ll do. Please cc my secretary and the board.”

There were a few more details, some chit-chat and water sipping, and the meeting was over.

“MA!” Devorah hissed the minute we exited. “What was that??”

“I don’t know,” I moaned.

She pulled me into a quiet hallway. “Ma! You showed up unprepared and basically threw me under the bus. I didn’t even know what was needed for this meeting. I could’ve put something together. You need to talk to me!”

My eyes narrowed. This was not on me. This was on Rivky, who upped and disappeared.

“And while we’re talking — this was not what I was expecting when I joined. First, Rivky looked like she was ready to kill me, or you, or both of us. And then she left, and now I’m stuck figuring out how to manage this entire organization when I thought I was going to do something more part-time.”

I glanced around. Was anyone else within earshot? This was really not the place for such a conversation. But Devorah was just getting started.

“This place functioned perfectly with Rivky. But now, I feel like I’m putting out fires in areas I didn’t know existed, and when I ask you, you don’t know anything! I thought you ran this organization?”

I gave Devorah a sharp look. What was she suggesting? She grew up in my house. She saw everything I did.

Devorah took a deep breath, her voice calmer. “Does Rivky have any plans? I think I remember her working on it when she was still here.”

“Rivky? Do I think she had plans?” I leaned against the wall for support. “She for sure had plans, and she’s probably gloating right now. President Reynolds basically shamed us out of the room.”

“Can you ask her?”

“Ask her?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no way I’m calling her. Not after what she did.”

Devorah was quiet. She rubbed the tip of her shoe into the floor before she spoke. “Ma, I was there. Maybe it was abrupt, but you hurt her.”

“Hurt her enough to do this?” I gestured wildly to the walls surrounding us.

“I don’t know.” Devorah shrugged. “I need a coffee. But if you want Tikvah Refuah to survive, you need to figure something out — and fast.”

Back in my office, I paced. The situation was bad. I deliberated calling Rivky. It was ridiculous, but so was the deadline. Only she knew enough to pull it off. Why did she hoard information like that?! I typed her name into my email search bar. Maybe we had email threads on it?

The first email that popped up had the subject line Wrap-up Spreadsheet. It didn’t look familiar, but it was marked as read. I clicked on it.

Hi Chani,

Attached is a spreadsheet with all the information relating to my responsibilities in the organization. I’ve set everything up so it should run smoothly until the 1st, and then Devorah can take over easily.

Rivky

I checked Streak. It said I’d opened the email three weeks ago; the day Rivky emailed the world that she was stepping down. Did I ever look at the spreadsheet?

I opened it. It was color-coded perfection and utterly overwhelming. I control ‘f’ed, and typed clean apartment. It pulled up the cleaning service number, the schedule, and the fact that I needed to renew it for the year — two days ago. Oh. Oh.

The memory came back. I’d just finished a good cry and checked my email before turning in. I’d been excited to see Rivky’s name in the inbox, but the tone was cold, and when I’d opened the spreadsheet, the anxiety of a million details and shame of the overload and the dagger that Rivky had left in me had all poured over me, like one of those ice bucket challenges. I’d closed the email and gone straight to bed. I must’ve forgotten about it because I didn’t mark it as unread….

I looked at the spreadsheet and tried it again: new suite. I clicked it and quickly scrolled through. It seems it was mostly done. Rivky even left a checklist of the last few things to finish. But what would take her thirty minutes would take me days.

Bile pooled in the back of my throat.

I took an Advil and paced. What options did I have? I opened the window to my office. Maybe the cool air would do something. But my brain kept coming back to the one solution I didn’t want.

“Why don’t you call Rivky?” Devorah had said, like it was so easy. It had been so easy for so many years, when I thought we were running this organization together. I did all the public-facing stuff, and she ran the behind-the-scenes. I was the lead; she was the stage manager. Tikvah Refuah was my brainchild. Calling Rivky now would be conceding defeat.

I took my shoes off. They say that feeling the ground beneath you helps. My soles just felt itchy.

What would happen if I didn’t call? I had the spreadsheet now; every other system would be up and running fine, no thanks to me. But Tikvah Refuah would lose face. There was no way I was making that deadline myself; the suite plans were incomplete.

I sat down at my desk. Used the organization’s land line to dial a number I knew by heart.

“Hello?” Rivky answered. Her voice was neutral. Not like the Rivky I knew.

“Hi,” I stammered. She didn’t say anything. I was on my own. “We had the hospital board meeting today.” Rivky was still quiet. “I didn’t have plans and budget allocations for the expanded bikur cholim room.”

“Is there a reason you called?” Rivky finally said. She was not going to make this easy.

“President Reynolds gave me until the weekend to get him everything. But I know it’s not enough time for me.” I paused, unsure what to say next. “Tikvah Refuah will look really bad if it doesn’t happen.”

I wished Rivky would step in and say something. Would help this thing along and make it less awkward. But she didn’t owe me anything. I knew that now.

“I was wondering if there was any chance you could help with it. I know you’re the best at this.” I choked the last sentence out.

“Sure,” she said.

“Really? Oh, my gosh, Rivky, you are too good. I….” I couldn’t say more. It was too hard.

“I’m not doing it for you, Chani.” Rivky’s tone was flat.

“Oh?”

“Not everything is about you. Klal Yisrael needs some help, and I can do something about it.”

Touché, Rivky. Touché.

“The work is basically done. There’s actually a link embedded in the spreadsheet I sent you. You’ll have it by tomorrow, end of day.”

“Thank you,” I managed. I hung up, depleted.

I was too late for us.

True to her word, the plans came in Erev Shabbos. They were beautiful and detailed and made so much sense. Rivky had translated my vision to paper. That’s what she always did.

I attached the file, wrote the email, cc’ed all necessary people, sent up a little prayer, and hit send on the email to the hospital president.

It took until Tuesday to get a response. “This is what I’m talking about. Great vision. Please schedule meetings with Facilities, Infection Control, Safety, Engineering, IT, Food Services, and Social Work. They’ll help refine the requirements and approve the final layout.”

My immediate instinct was to text Rivky, but my number was still blocked. Celebrating with Devorah would feel like an admission of weakness. She was still mad about the meeting. I texted Nachum instead.

Rivky saves the day again.

Mazel tov, he texted back.

And there went my appetite for lunch.

I clicked open Rivky’s plans. I looked back at the email. We needed to coordinate with the hospital. We needed an architect, a designer, a contractor. Also permits and approvals and usage guideline and SO MANY MEETINGS and and and….

My stomach traveled to my throat. I swallowed hard. Details, piled upon details. I usually connected the people to the ideas, the donor to the project, maybe picked out the paint colors and some furniture. Rivky called herself the COO, and she’d poke me and call me the CEO.

Get to work, Chani, I told myself. You can do this. Look at what you’ve done so far. That pep talk had always worked, right up until a couple of days ago. Now I knew that I’d been propped up all along. I was the little kid who thinks he dunked the ball because his father picked him up and held him near the basket.

Ideas are cheap, execution is reality.

I reached for my phone to call Devorah. She might be annoyed, and sadly, I was only really getting it now… but we had a job to do. But I already had a text from her.

We need to talk, Ma. When do you have a few minutes?

My heart plummeted. Those are never good words.

Does now work? I wanted to talk to you, too.

A minute later, she was knocking at my office door.

“Boobah, come in.”

Devorah looked at me strangely. When was the last time I’d called her that? She took the chair furthest from me, her back stiff. We looked at each other. How could it be this awkward with my own daughter?

Devorah fiddled with a fringe on her skirt. “So, Ma, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since last week. And….” She faltered. Oh no. “And I’m stepping away from Tikvah Refuah. It was very different when I agreed to join, and I’m also worried that it’ll get unhealthy between the two of us. So… yeah….” She trailed off.

I felt my brain firing messages of “No! Not happening!” If Devorah stepped down, it meant the problem I thought I was in the middle of solving was back — and bigger.

It also meant my daughter must think I’m pathetic.

“Are you going to say something, Ma?”

I wanted to yell at her — kibbud eim, responsibility — but I knew she was right. Righter than she even knew.

“I hear you,” I managed. I was the villain. I wouldn’t make her stay, even if I couldn’t do this without her.

“You do?”

I nodded.

It was quiet again. This was the part where I was supposed to berate and protest, demand explanations and promises, but I couldn’t.

“So, I’m gonna tie up the stuff I’ve been working on. Finish the week or so. ’Kay?”

I couldn’t do more than nod.

“Wait, did you want to talk to me about something?” she asked.

I waved a hand. “Irrelevant now.” She didn’t probe, though I’d hoped she would. Maybe she’d stay on if she saw how much I needed her.

But she was playing a different game than mine with Rivky. A smarter, more mature one.

When she left, I locked the door to my office, closed the lights, put my head down and let the tears flow. They tasted like regret, overwhelm, and ego.

I pushed rice around my plate, lining up the grains vertically.

“What are you doing?” Nachum asked. I couldn’t talk to him; he’d just say, “told you so.” But I had no one to tell.

“We got the hospital’s go-ahead.”

“Right, you told me. That’s great!” He sounded truly happy.

“I’m just beyond stressed at the thought of what comes next to make it happen.”

Nachum nodded. “Rivky won’t carry you anymore.” It sounded like a basic fact, not a needle.

“And Devorah just stepped down.”

Nachum put his fork down. “Really? She didn’t say anything to me.”

That was a strange comment. “Did she say anything to you before this?” I looked down at my plate. A part of me couldn’t bear the answer.

“She did talk to me about how she hadn’t realized the dynamics before she joined, and the mess now. That’s all.”

Dynamics. Mess. Such small words to describe my whole life.

“So what are you going to do?” He took a bite ofrice, making this conversation seem casual.

I shrugged. He was obviously on her side. Made sense. I didn’t blame anyone — not anymore. But that still left me with an organization to run when I didn’t know how. That thought broke me, and I found myself sobbing into my rows of rice.

Nachum didn’t say anything. He was never good at my hysterics. But he did clear off and wash the dishes. That was his version of saying, “I’m here.”

I managed to make it to the couch, wrapped myself in a chenille throw, and held myself. I couldn’t do this. Everything I thought I built was someone else’s work. How could I pretend to fill her shoes? Tikvah Refuah was over. I was over. I rocked myself, trying to dull the pain in my throat and ache in my eyes.

Nachum put a cup of hot water with lemon on the coffee table. “I’m shutting down Tikvah Refuah,” I croaked. “I can’t do this.” Nachum took a slow sip of his coffee. “I know I can’t,” I repeated.

“You can’t do certain parts. But you do others brilliantly.”

I scowled. What I actually did felt insignificant now.

“You just need to hire the right person.”

“Hire?” I took a sip and burned my tongue.

“All organizations hire for top positions. You and Rivky happened to have complementary skillsets, so you never needed to.”

“But if I hire—” I started, and the words died in my throat. If I hired for such a key role, then Tikvah Refuah wouldn’t be mine.

But it never was. I knew that now.

“I can’t.” I closed my eyes, the pain behind my eyes coming to the fore.

“Chani, you don’t have a choice.”

I looked at Nachum, his expression serious. What was he saying?

“The community — the larger Jewish community — they need Tikvah Refuah. It’s way bigger than you. Klal work is a responsibility, not a passion project.” He paused. “Get in touch with a recruiter. You’ll figure it out. You have to.” His tone was casual, like he didn’t grasp the bomb he’d just dropped. He drained his cup, patted the armrest, and said, “Going to Maariv.”

The living room was dark and quiet. All I could hear was my thoughts. This wasn’t about me. This wasn’t about me, my brain repeated. Tikvah Refuah wasn’t my organization. It was something much bigger. I closed my eyes, let the darkness cloak me.

Tomorrow would bring sun, new hope, and change.

Tonight was for mourning the ego I’d never known I had.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 973)