After His Mother Passed Away from Cardiac Arrest, the Soldier Cried and Said: "I Made Her Life Difficult"

There is a common saying that 'only when something is lost, one learns to appreciate it.' The following touching post, published by a young man named Elisaf Ezra, managed to make us tear up and also sharpen our awareness of the immense importance (both great, and unfortunately dormant as well) in the mitzvah of honoring parents.

"Today, I saw a soldier crying at the central station in Afula," writes Ezra. "I approached him and asked 'What happened?' At first, he didn't answer, but after a few minutes told me that last month, his mother passed away from cardiac arrest. I tried to comfort him, but he said to me: 'Bro, my tears are for all the things I didn't get to say.'"

Ezra realized this was a golden opportunity to open the soldier's heart and started asking about the things he meant. "You see, my mother felt pain in her bones, whenever I was in pain," the soldier shared emotionally. "My mother worked three jobs, just so I wouldn't go to sleep hungry. My mother would wait for me to come home from the base, just to wash my uniforms. When I would go out to have fun, I would return home at 3-4 in the morning, and my mother was always awake. She wouldn't go to sleep until she saw with her own eyes that I was safe and sound.

"My mother was my army, my lawyer... she was the one who lifted me on her shoulders when my legs were tired from the road. I was her whole world and lived at the top of her life's pyramid.

"And me? I wasn't a good kid. I made my mother's life difficult. I didn't appreciate the food she made for me, I didn't call her to ask how she was – she was always the one who called, and when we talked on the phone, it was always me who ended the call."

The soldier continued to describe to Ezra the many acts of kindness his mother did for him – even when she didn't feel like it, even when she was too tired to fulfill his wishes. "Even when I got hungry at midnight, she would make me a feast, and me... I would make a face when she asked me to put something on the TV for her.

"My mother scratched away her dreams and gave up on herself, just so I could live a good life. And I was an idiot – I dedicated my time to worthless and bad things like clubs, instead of spending it with her. I didn't give her any attention. I thought she would live forever and took her presence in the world for granted."

At this point, the soldier broke into uncontrollable tears and, with a choked voice, cried out: "Once I was the world to someone. Mom. Now I'm just a shadow of a person, a lump of flesh without a heart."

When the soldier finished his words, Ezra stood up and turned his head so he wouldn't see the tears that flooded his face. The two parted with a strong embrace and words of encouragement, and the first thing Ezra did after the soldier left was to call his own mother. "Mom, I just called to tell you that you are my whole world, just in case you didn't know," he told her.