It wasn’t just your friends and patients who loved you. Almost anyone you came into contact with had the greatest respect and admiration for you. How else to explain the visits to you, when you were in rehab after your stroke, of the young woman from our bank who only knew you from your trips there to make a deposit?
I was so impressed by her Sunday visits that I asked her if she usually visited customers of the bank. “Oh no,” she said, “I don’t. But there is something special about Dr. Mauer.”
Yes, there was a lot that was special about you. The tremendous respect you showed the rabbis in your life, your love of divrei Torah, especially from the books of Rabbi Simon Dolgin, Rabbi Berel Wein, and Rabbi Maurice Lamm, and the words of Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, among others. Your thirst for knowledge was almost unquenchable as you kept up with everything in medicine, in science, and in politics in the U.S. and around the world, especially in Israel.
Probably most remarkable was the way you kept up with good friends long after you had moved away, with a phone call every erev Shabbos, no matter where in the world we were. And you made it a point to take care of the needs of family no matter what the hour.
You delighted in your grandchildren, every one of them a gem. And one of your greatest pleasures was making me happy. I hope you knew that a big part of my happiness was being married to you. I was so proud to be your wife and I miss you more than words can tell.
“When love is strong and runs deep it pulsates with an energy that cannot be stopped, not even by death’s grip. When two souls are connected and one departs from this world, the separation may seem final, but in truth the relationship transcends time.” – As quoted in Small Miracles (1997, Adams Media) by Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal.)