By Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence
Last week was a lot. I’m usually pretty good at expressing my feelings and articulating what I’m going through, but last week was a lot for even me.
I expected it to be an emotionally charged few days, as it always is around Moshe’s yahrzeit.
I think it still surprises me when, year after year, no matter what has happened since, I still become a human puddle of tears before, during, and even after the days leading up to what became a complete change in mine and my kids’ lives.
I try to understand why that is.
Why, with all the goodness and happiness we’ve managed to experience since then, does it not matter during the week of his loss, six years ago?
I think I know why I cease to function for a few days, as the sun shines for more hours of the day and the trees begin to bloom.
That was a thought on the day he died. It was a beautiful day, and as I drove home after receiving the news of his death, I kept wondering if people understood that my life was unraveling before my eyes as they enjoyed the gorgeous weather.
It made me realize that sometimes, from the outside, you can have absolutely no idea what someone else is going through.
I remember that day as if it happened yesterday—though the details are unclear, I was being protected until I’d be off the road—but I always assumed that whatever had happened to him would be temporary.
Even if the recovery took time, all would be okay in the end.
It didn’t happen that way, but I mourn the loss of so much more than his death, year after year.
I mourn the loss of innocence from my babies, who were too young to be fed that kind of news upon their arrival back home—a place that should have continued to be their sanctuary.
I want to tell you that six years later, everything is back to normal again, but I think I knew even back then that the meaning of “normal” would change forever.
To this day, I struggle with trying to convince some of my kids that not everyone dies at work on a random day, leaving behind an entire world—a community that loved him, friends from all walks of life, a wife and kids who would wait for his arrival every night. We continued waiting even after he was no longer here, and we’d beg and plead to G-d that this was all a terrible mistake.
I might have thought that after a few years, when things began to finally resemble a stable, steady home life, my kids wouldn’t suddenly develop those fears.
I’ve discovered that, just like grief, the timeline of mourning someone’s loss isn’t linear. It doesn’t go in any particular order, and it can resurface at truly unexpected times, even years later.
That’s what happened last week when Jeremy’s stepfather, Maier, passed away. As I sat in front of the iPad, 6,000 miles away from the levaya taking place in Beit Shemesh, an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu came over me.
You see, it’s as if we’re continuing to live the life that Maier has just finished living. Some details were different, but there were parts of our stories that were uncannily similar.
Maier and Jeremy’s mother Phylis married 30 years ago, and he became the lucky recipient of four children, some in-law children, a grandson, and would go on to become the “papa” of 17 more grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, in addition to nieces and nephews from his immediate family.
Even though we arrived into the Magence family only a few years ago, Maier wanted to get to know my children.
He wrote speeches for bar mitzvahs, visited the families, both local and not, and became a patriarch of a family he hadn’t started in the traditional manner but nurtured in his quiet, understated way.
As I watched the hespedim yesterday from his stepsons—who call themselves his sons—and from grandchildren and nephews, I realized that Jeremy had done the same thing that his (step)father had done for Jeremy’s mother and siblings.
While Maier didn’t have his own biological children, Jeremy has masterfully connected us all into a family, immediately assuming the children born from a different father as his own.
He might have subconsciously observed Maier over the years and seen how he hadn’t just acquired the title of “husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather,” but how he LIVED it.
He became what it meant to be all those roles while literally learning on the job. He nurtured those relationships and became the person they needed him to be, starting in his 50s. Maier Chaim passed away on the sixth yahrzeit of my late husband, Chaim Moshe.
One departed from this world way too soon, leaving behind so much, while the other took hold of a family that was looking for stability, love, and companionship—a family man who might not have had the usual opportunity to establish one in his younger years.
As Jeremy spoke about Maier and his gifts, quirks, and the memories of having him join their family, I thought of what it might look like many years from now when our kids have to stand up and eulogize their parents.
Seldom do you hear anyone speak negatively about the one who has passed, but you can always tell when it’s truly heartfelt. When this person made a real difference in the lives of their loved ones.
My hope is that my kids see the sacrifices that have been made for them and understand, after 120, that although tragedy struck their lives at a very young age, they were also blessed with a second chapter.
My hope is that they can hold the sadness of losing their father at the same time as holding the gratitude of having a Jeremy step in where Moshe left off. May our loved ones who have passed on continue blessing our lives from places unknown.
Hamakom yinachem eschem besoch avlei tzion v’yerushalayim.
Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence is a native of the Five Towns community, a mom of 5, a writer, and a social media influencer.
