WHAT WOULD SHE WANT OF US NOW?

In our dreams, the world is a perfect place. People care about the poor and each other. Everyone lives with a sense of purpose, direction and civic spirit. The coronavirus is eradicated.

And Ruth Bader Ginsburg never dies.

Yet one generally wakes up from dreaming and finds oneself with open eyes in the one world we all share that now lacks its champion and exemplar. The question is what would RBG want us to do now that we are left to go on without her?

As far as we are concerned, a period of mourning is all right, as long as it does not detract our attention from the fight for equal justice under the law. RBG was a woman of positive spirit and focused on action, a real-life superhero to generations of women in particular, though her work also benefited men, from the first father she represented, who was denied employment benefits afforded to mothers to raise children.

Clearly, the best way to honor the associate justice is to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, to do good and “tikum olam,” or heal the world. RBG’S mother was named Celia Amster, and it was inspiring to learn, while visiting the Museum of the Diaspora in Tel Aviv, that the last name Amster may be derived from the German surname Ackerman, meaning “fortress of ashes.”

This could explain Justice Ginsburg’s diligence, work ethic and sturdy sense of self-discipline no matter what confronted her. Even in death, she lives on.

A friend of ours, Anna Cline, summed up how many women feel: “I didn’t have the honor of knowing her, but last night I was crying like I lost my best friend. As a woman, I always took comfort in knowing she had our backs. What a great woman we have lost.”

Our family was always grateful for the associate justice’s focus on supporting us throughout the years. In 1999, RBG officiated Sara-ellen’s marriage in the Supreme Court. In 2014, she met with Gabriel and his brother in her chambers, a session which left them both awestruck.

Gabriel remembers his experience meeting the associate justice in her private chambers after he was guided through circular marble staircases and long wooden corridors to get there. “She was short and soft-spoken but sharp and friendly. My brother and I sat with her for an hour. We discussed Riley v. California, a landmark case on the impermissibility of warrantless search and seizure of cellphones during arrests. She expressed the importance of privacy and discussed the way cellphones were becoming more like computers.

“She took a color photo off of her mantle, picturing Jimmy Carter’s diverse appointees to the Court of Appeals in 1980. She pointed out one young woman from a group. It was her standing next to a president. But her humility showed her to be beyond politics. And when we asked her how one could become a Supreme Court justice, her response surprised us for its simplicity. She told us that her life involved a stroke of luck.”

She was humble about it all and hopeful for a more inclusive future, being the second-ever female associate justice. She famously said that there will be enough women on the Supreme Court when there are nine.

We still have the personalized baby gifts she sent us at the births of both boys, now ages 16 and 20.

We now know she had a much greater understanding of the weight of these gifts because she knew how important the next generation would be in shaping the world.

She was not a person to stop caring about anything or treat anyone lightly, even in this time of virtual friends and limited social interactions because of the coronavirus.

Everything is temporary and should be treated with that kind of reverence and hope.

But the problem is that a film is over all of us that mutes our sense of realworld traumas and tragedies so plentiful these days in the 24-7 news cycle.

We echo the sense of heartbreak and despair being experienced around the world right now but ask everyone reading this to be glad for the lasting impact RBG has left behind for all of us to cherish.