Carla J. Fink

Carla J. Fink of Milford, Mass., passed away at age 72 on April 1, 2020, at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston while her husband held her hand. She was laid to rest in Sharon Memorial Park on April 6.

Carla was born December 16, 1947, in Dayton, Ohio. Her parents moved to Miami Beach, Fla., while she was an infant to be near her mother’s family. She made several lifelong friends there before moving to the Boston area to join the Brandeis University class of 1969. Shen remained close friends with a group of her classmates until the end. Other than two years in Cleveland to earn a Master of Science in Social Administration degree from Case Western Reserve University, she remained in the Boston area for the rest of her life.

Carla found her calling as a social worker. She held a number of positions in that field, most of them working with children or the elderly. Her proudest accomplishment was creating, from scratch, a Wraparound program that integrated a multiple services to support Deaf children who were dealing with other difficulties. That program evolved into today’s Walden Community Service at The Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham.

Carla first dealt with breast cancer in the mid-1990s. It was treated and went away, to return with a vengeance in 2016. From that point on it could be slowed, and it was, but not stopped. She never stopped living during her multiple rounds of treatments, visiting Chile, Jordan, Israel, Australia and New Zealand with her husband after her second diagnosis and not slowing down until 2020. She lived life to the fullest for as long as she could and went down fighting.

Carla is survived by her loving husband, Dr. Efrem Mallach; by two stepsons and their families, including four grandchildren that she thought of as her own, by many cousins on both her parents’ sides, and by a host of friends to whom she brought joy whenever they met. She will be missed by all of them.

Contributions in Carla’s memory may be made to either of her two favorite charities, Doctors Without Borders and Planned Parenthood.