December 24, 2024 
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I was home in my apartment with my wife of three months at the time when I got a phone call from my father, which wasn’t unusual.
He got straight to the point.
“I’m hearing that Moishe (my brother-in-law) fainted at work. Can you call some people to find out what’s going on?”
Right away, I jumped off my chair and started making calls.
From the moment I made my first phone call until the moment I heard the dreaded words of Baruch Dayan HaEmes — that Moishe had suffered a cardiac arrest at his desk at work — it felt like seconds. It felt like no time at all had passed.
How could this be?
He’s 40 years old!
I just saw him a few days ago. He looked totally fine! He was so alive!
He has five little kids — five little kids who are probably in school or playgroup right now, not knowing that their lives have forever changed. Their hero isn’t coming home from work today.
I ran to my parents’ house with my wife.
We were all in a daze. Messages of “BDE” started rolling in, before the kids were even informed.
Our next stop was my sister’s house, where the kids had just arrived home from school.
I vividly remember Zahava Farbman, who is highly skilled and trained for these situations, sitting down with the kids. She looked them straight in the eyes and said, “Guys, your father passed away today. He isn’t coming home.”
She then sent each child to their room to process their emotions.
I’m closing my eyes as I write this, transporting myself back to that awful scene.
I remember hearing my sweet little nephews crying — sobbing. Their innocence was stripped from them. They loved their father, but I know that everyone loves their father, right? No. These kids idolized their father. He wasn’t just their father; he was their best friend. He was really everyone’s best friend.
A moment I’ll never forget.
The boys eventually emerged from their rooms.
One of my nephews had made something and hung it on his door: a cutout of his father, surrounded by all his siblings.
A seven-year-old’s response, just minutes after finding out his Tatty had passed away: a commitment to never forget who his father was, and that he will always be part of their family.
What followed after that was, at times, a blur: a heartbreaking levayah, shiva, and months — years, really — of being there for our sister and her kids. Nights spent with my nephews, reassuring them that things would be okay. It wouldn’t be the same. It would be different, but it would be okay.
I remember one of those nights when the oldest of my nephews, then 11 years old — a boy who aged 40 years in just 4 days — was crying in bed. He was worried that his family was going to fall apart.
“Who’s going to do all the things Tatty did?”
That question was a knife to the heart.
“Let’s make a list, Dovid.”
He went on to list all the things his father did, and we figured out how they would get done. Then, he went to sleep.
I remember walking out of that bedroom and breaking down, maybe for the first time in days. And then, I made eye contact with the sign his younger brother had made for his door.
These kids lost the best thing in the entire world. He wasn’t just a father; he was the best father.
Why is all of this coming out now, you may ask?
This weekend, my sister went on one of @MeaningfulMin’s podcast shows, Stories of Hope with Tziporah Grodko.
Yes, a story of hope.
Malkie, B’H, remarried a couple of years ago.
She had every reason to call it quits — to not be there for her kids anymore, to not be there for herself. Her life was thrown upside down in a second.
But she got up. She rebuilt her life.
Her kids now have someone they call “Dad” once again.
Moishe will forever be missed. There is not a day that goes by that he isn’t on my mind. There are so many things I can’t wait to tell him.
This experience really brought together my whole family.
My sister dini and my brothers Yochanan, Dovi and Nison all stopped their lives to be there for the kids and our sister.
I look forward to the day we are all united with the coming of Moshiach.
Let it be now!
