Our deepest Sympathy

you are all in our thoughts and prayers.

Clara and Nick, we are so sad to hear of your beautiful daughter’s passing.  We are praying for you and your family. 

Marta and Mark G

Maria was like a sister to me for the first 18 years of our lives. I’ve been flooded with so many memories over the past few days as I’ve been thinking of her and how much she will be missed. 

Although I wish I got to spend time with her over the past 10 years, the gratitude I have for getting to know her and create memories with her as kids is so big. 

I wanted to share some of my favorite memories in hopes of bringing a smile to those who love her.

Here are a few glimpses into the amazing memories I had growing up with Wee:

Maria’s love for animals was always prevalent. She truly helped raise my childhood dog Opal for the first 8 weeks of her life. She’d call my family to give us updates on how she was doing. We were both head over heels for Opal.

How excited we’d get when Opal and Midnight (the Panzini’s dog growing up) got to see each other because Midnight was Opal’s Aunt. And don’t get me started on how much joy bringing the entire cocker spaniel family gave us.

When Nick brought Maria and I to see Eight Below. Maria and I could not stop crying.

My family went to see the Altar Boyz off broadway. As an innocent Jewish girl, I thought the songs were fun and catchy. I played the entire soundtrack for Maria at my house and she really loved The Miracle Song (go ahead and listen to it). She could not stop singing the chorus and dancing too. Clara wasn’t too happy with us, but I have to say, it’s one of my favorite Maria memories to this day.

Maria covering my face with “I love Jesus” stickers as a kid.

Maria always having a stash of candy. I have many memories of her pulling a bag of candy seemingly out of nowhere and handing me a piece.

Whenever caller ID became a thing on home phones, when my dad would call the Panzini house the phone would show Feigin Michael. Every single time Maria answered the phone without fail she’d say “Hello Feigin Michael,” and proceed to have a conversation with him before passing the phone to her dad. Maria proceeded to greet my dad in person as Feigin Michael for the rest of our teenage years.

We went on a family trip to Mexico when we were 12. Maria being the brave, adventurous girl she was wanted to try scuba diving with her dad and sister. The thought of it terrified me, but I wanted to spend every moment of that trip with Maria. So of course, I went scuba diving too. I’ll never scuba dive again, but boy am I glad I had that experience with Maria.

On that same trip, we went out to eat at this restaurant with a Mariachi band. We had them play La Bamba and myself, Maria, and Clara shimmied and danced the entire time. To this day when that song comes on, all I can think about is that moment with Maria and Clara.

Although many of these memories short and sweet, not elaborate stories, I think they really encompass who Maria was at her core - a fun loving, goofy girl who truly made everyone around her feel so happy and loved. It was hard to be sad around Maria. And reading all of these memories from friends in the past 10 years makes me so happy to know that if anything has changed, it’s that she had gotten even better - more fun, more generous, more thoughtful. And that truly is a testament to the amazing woman she aw