Obituary of Liliana Goldberger

For those who are gathered today to accompany Liliana to her final rest, and for those who due to long distances are also accompanying with feelings, thoughts and memories ... which doesn’t mean they’re less present. And in memory of dear family and number of friends already inexorably absent. Not being able to attend myself and knowing that other members of family and surely friends are in the same situation, I therefore hope that what I evoke in memory of my dear aunt serves in some way to somehow balance, if possible, our absence. With Aunt Liliana we exchanged by mail from 2001 and up to a few years. The first mail is 14/06/2001, more than 15 years ago, where Liliana was talking to Florence and me about Naomi, our first daughter born in October 2000: "I am very excited to see that beautiful baby who has joined our And yours, Florence, family. It is a beauty! Looks like also that it is very strong, it seems to me by the posture when crawling "So, not needing to go further from that first mail to us, I already find everything that defines Aunt Liliana in her qualities of warmth, humility, wisdom, friendship and so many more And ... her conviction and concern for not losing sight ! The sole posture of his crawling in the photo allows her to determine the strength of the "baby". Naomi grew-up and remains strong as she said. I mentioned the distances at first. She knew they were a problem, but in her battle of optimism and willingness to cope with adversity she explained sic "I do not know if the reality of huge distances are important, but Ervin and I tried to solve the issue of" Far "And" Difficult" by imagining that the family ties are long instead of short and that in any case the family stays together. It's a concept that I invented and it seems to work. " It was maybe a confidence she made us of her philosophy to keep the family together. But I share it because it is so important to know her great concern for that so fundamental family unit, and how she fought against what destiny opposed to it. I will share experiences that I had with her, some fresh in my memory others more distant and imprecise but which have the mark of their vitality, their love towards others and their healthy mood, with which she managed to soften the roughness of life... Follow me a few seconds to winter of 1973 to my family home 15 ' away from Aunt Liliana’s and her family in Vicente Lopez. A terrible episode of armed robbery collapses upon my family on an icy morning. It evolves into a dramatic episode ending in a hand-to-hand combat of my father against the thief. My dad receives a shot which did not kill him for very little and is taken without hesitation in a car by a neighbor and my mom to the hospital. At the age of eight I have spent the worst moment of my life threatened with the gun in the temple, and now we are alone with my brother Sergio in a homeless house taken in charge by neighbors and an incompetent policeman ... I do not know how they managed to prevent Liliana but she came and ran upstairs full of anguish and dread pressed me into a protective embrace (I think also Sergio) that was for me the first sign that horror had really ended, that we could count on his infinite affection, and that things changed from there. That hug which I still feel today and that I think I never recalled to her later on, was proof to me of the value of Liliana for the family and all other aspect. From all memories I want to rescue my visit to Philadelphia in the winter of ‘85 (?) Liliana is going to take me to the University of Penn where she studies Landscape architecture. Along the way I discover that a homeless person is a regular interlocutor of her to whom she tries to provide material help getting people to donate him shoes to preventing from freezing and also encouraging him with conversation. It was a teaching for me who thought I already knew all about how you can relate to a homeless on the street. Later on and after the visit to Penn we shared a meal of sandwiches that for lack of time we did not manage to finish and Tia Liliana proposes as a practical solution to keep it in a locker and recover it later, which we finally could not do. We could imagine the surprise of who found it and which may have been source of much anger ... We were fortunate enough to receive her in Paris where she came to visit us for a few days. He met three of my four daughters and shared beautiful days with good humor, curiosity, advice for life, for daughters, memories and laughter. We toured the entire Place des Vosges with games for boys, art galleries, and a restaurant to share a nice meal. And I'm also glad that I took a day to drive her almost entirely around Paris including a quick stop at her request in the square of Trocadero leaving the car badly parked between hundreds of buses of hundreds of tourists to take a photo in such scenographic place. I didn’t see the photo. Who cares… the imperative to achieve it was more fun than the photo itself. I want to emphasize that I have a strong thought for Uncle Ervin also who was always present in his thoughts and in each letter and whom I remember with great affection. As I was in contact with my cousins these days ??I wish to skip a generation and tell her grandchildren, whom I almost do not know that I think they had an extraordinary grandmother and that I’m convinced that either they already know it or they will discover it over the years. To finish, although we’ll stay in touch, I say goodbye repeating what I thought in the first minutes after learning Tia Liliana had left: How big a grief gives Liliana's departure. Aunt Liliana. Always present in the soul of the family, with its contrasts, counterweights, exuberance, angers and ultimately, good humor. Insightful, guardian of a different way of being and thinking. Solidary and human. Daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt ... friend. Liliana, I take you and we will take you safely in our heart. Always ! Victor !