How losing my mom changed my life

5 min readNov 21, 2015

I looked around the familiar house. I used to live here but it looked different now. I could still smell her cooking but this time it made me almost vomit.

‘What does it feel like knowing you are dying?’ I thought to myself. My entire body shivering just thinking about it.

My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer that reached her brain.

I saw her smile, jokes and personality vanish before my eyes in the speed of light.

I made some of the hardest decisions of my life those days, including getting treatment, letting her stay home and not go to a hospital when things got bad.

Two months and she was gone.

After my mom was diagnosed we took her to the beach. She enjoyed watching the sunset, my kids play and… a cigarette

I felt so alone.

Took me years to grasp what happened in these couple of months.

Did I make the right decisions?

Did I help her or make things worse?

What really matters in life after-all?

It’s been 6 years now and I decided to write some of my takeaways.

Please add yours and share with those who are suffering loss. I hope this can help.

1. Life is short. Chase your passion

Sounds trivial but seeing my mom dying was a huge wake up call to re-think what really matters.

What do I want to think about when I am lying in bed knowing it’s my time? Am I really happy most days and am I really doing what I want to do with my life?

I, personally, decided that despite wanting to be with my kids and family, I needed to also push my career further. I wanted to make an impact on a bigger scale. I wanted to make something significant and I knew I could.

I jumped with both feet into a journey of a lifetime.

Each individual, after a great loss will lean towards a different direction. What makes one happy won’t necessarily make someone else content.

But find your passion, find your courage and go chase it.

2. Constantly prioritize and make decisions

We arrived from California to visit my mom in Israel with our two babies. Four days into our visit my mom collapsed and the cancer was diagnosed. I needed to get my family settled in a new country, my work transferred to Israel, find a home, find a day care, bring the dog we left in California and so much more… millions of logistics and above all — be with my mom.

Every new day something else seemed critical.

Saying no to things became a norm.

I made mistakes. We always do.

But I learned to make decisions fast based on what I know and move on.

I realized that what I’ll know in a few days could make me change my mind but I had to move forward.

Life and business is constant prioritization. What seems super important now may not be so important later, but sometimes we forget to look at the bigger picture and re-prioritize accordingly.

So prioritize constantly, make decisions based on what you know and move on.

3. Think positive — for yourself and those around you

We all know how positive thinking can influence the body and soul, and make us look and feel so much better.

But how can you keep smiling when you are breaking inside?

Force a smile. Try to find little moments of happiness to hold on to and smile at them: The blue sky, birds on a tree, cute dog walking or whatever it is. Smile at the world and it will smile back. Things look better when you wear a smile.
Listen to your favorite music and sing along as loud as you can. That’s on its own can make you feel better.
Find your escape: running, yoga, walking on the beach or whatever you need. Find it and do it. Life will look better after.
Don’t think of what can go wrong. We are taught to always look at all the possible outcomes and prepare for the worst but sometimes you need to simply ignore the worst ones because their existence doesn’t help in any way. Think of what can go right and try chasing it.

4. Find ways to tell the truth even when its painful

One day, my mom asked the doctor to tell her the truth about her chances so she could plan.

The truth was hard.

The doctor chose to tell my mom she had a year or more with the right treatment. That sounded better. He thought he was motivating us. In retrospect we made very bad choices based on this unrealistic hope.

A good friend, who is also a doctor, tried to tell me that she doesn’t think my mom has more than a few months but how could she be right if the expert told us otherwise?

Sadly, my friend was right and knowing it would have helped us prioritize and make completely different decisions about treatments, time spent and so much more.

In business, as well, people around you need to know the truth even when it’s hard. There are many ways to tell the truth and finding the right way to say it — is crucial. But in any case the truth will help everyone make better decisions. Don’t give in to the comfort of hiding the truth — your business, peers, customers, family and everyone around you need to know and you’ll eventually be more successful facing the truth.

5. Sometimes you’ll have to give up and say goodbye

We are taught from very young age that letting go isn’t an option.

“Never give up”.

So how can we suddenly say goodbye to someone we love?

How can we admit to ourselves and to others that we are giving up?

Honestly, I failed on this one and simply couldn’t do it. Even when I knew it’s a matter of days — I couldn’t say a proper goodbye. I was constantly looking for ways to make things better: tell a joke, read a motivating story or show pictures.

Saying “I will miss you” or “goodbye” just didn’t seem like something I could say.

I am still somewhat sorry for that.

In business, you also need to know when a certain direction reached a roadblock and its time to admit and quit trying.

I’m aware of the importance of this lesson but also realize that this is by far my biggest weakness.