I knew my mother was not coming back the day my aunt unpacked the Pesach brisket from her suitcase. Eight months after Mom died, I could sometimes still fool myself into imagining my mother was on some sort of extended vacation. I blocked out the days and nights at her hospital bed, as my agitated mother struggled for words to describe what she needed. “I want to sit up…. And see the seagulls….” I finally figured out that she wanted a deck chair. By that time the breast cancer had metastasized to her brain, the doctors said. There was nothing they could do. Mom was only conscious in hospice for a day or two before she closed her eyes and waited for her body to die. She was seemingly comfortable, at least. My three aunts and my own sister and I sat vigil beside her, passing strange hours punctuated by tearful cell phone calls and generous servings of donated hospice cakes. My grandmother, 92 and unable to travel across the country to be by her daughter’s side, received updates from her daughters. Curiously, my father visited less than one would have expected after 49 years of marriage. After mom’s abrupt hospitalization and decline, he seemed to operate in a state of shock. But the frozen mass of meat that emerged from my aunt’s suitcase was unmistakable proof. My mother was not preparing Passover dinner. She would never prepare it again. And,yes, my Aunt is insane. Who brings blocks of frozen meat in their carryon bag? “What did the TSA think?” I wondered aloud. The brisket itself didn’t mean much to me. As a fish-eating vegetarian, I found the other Passover dishes much more appetizing. But I understood. This would be the first big family holiday without my mother and my grandmother. Six months after her eldest daughter died, my grandmother died as well. The emptiness had to be filled somehow. So there we were, the survivors, probably still in grief and shock, going through the motions of a proper holiday, as much for my father and my children as anything else. The brisket was defrosted, reheated and served. I prepared my mother’s famous chopped and fried, “English-style” gefilte fish that she recalled her own grandmother making for the holiday. I even willed myself to follow my mother’s rituals for preparing the fish, careful to choose a non-windy morning on which to fry outside so that my kitchen wouldn’t smell of grease for days. Matzo balls were shaped and boiled, two types of charoset were prepared. My sister, father and I had the annual argument about how to place the extra table in the entry way. Guests sat down for the seder, to eat and drink sweet wine and sing Chad Gadya. The children fought about who really found the Afikomen and who cheated. Amazingly, life went on, even without my mother and grandmother. My aunt and sister and I went through the motions of preparing the seder despite of—or perhaps because of—the emptiness. And while the motions and the rituals couldn’t bring our beloved ones back, like Passover itself, they reminded us that we were beginning our own journey into the unknown. This post was submitted by nsandweiss.