A Daughter's Touching Story: Father Finds Spiritual Peace Before Passing

This is perhaps one of the most touching posts we've come across lately, and as you start reading it - within the first few lines, you will feel like you know the woman who wrote it personally. 

Instead of her name, the woman chose to sign as 'A Daughter of Israel's Diary', and she writes: "My dad passed away five years ago, and I remember it was on a Saturday night. I saw him sitting on the couch in the living room, but I saw his reflection and realized something was wrong. I felt like there was no life in him, that he was no longer with us in this world. Although his body was there - I felt his soul wasn't. He had gone to work. Then I asked my mom: 'Mom, if something happens to Dad?', and she told me 'Nothing will happen to him.' I asked her again: 'Mom, if Dad dies?', but she didn't really pay attention to me."

Her mother responded to her questions naturally, without panic. "She knows me as an anxious child who was stressed by everything. Why would anything happen?"

At two in the morning, her father returned, and he called her mother on the way. "She felt something was wrong happening. We went outside to him, and saw half of his taxi parked on the sidewalk and half on the road. He got out and walked crookedly, spoke strangely. His face was twisted, we didn't really understand him. But we understood one thing: he had a stroke."

Then the guilt began. 

"I remember arguing with him about something on Shabbat. We had a trivial argument, I don't even remember what it was about. It wasn't really important. And immediately when he arrived, I realized this was my only chance to apologize. It was the only thing that mattered to me at that moment. The most amazing thing was that he also asked for my forgiveness, even though I was the one who was wrong."

"We entered his room, and the doctors told us: '10 minutes ago he passed'"

Hours later, they were already with him at the hospital, doing a CT scan of his head. "They told us it was a mild stroke, and when he would be discharged, he would need rehabilitation and learn to do things anew. We accepted everything - as long as he would live. He lay in bed, sedated and ventilated, and I decided to give him a Torah lesson. I took pamphlets from intersections and Pirkei Avot, and started reading to him."

What happened in those moments astonished her. 

"Although he was not with us, every time I recited a Torah lesson to him - his body would move. They didn't believe me when I said it, and I called my friend to come in and see. And again, he moved. When I was silent, he stopped moving. His soul heard, and it did good for him."

According to her, this was a person who until that point - believed, but didn't observe Shabbat. "Before he was sedated, he told my brother: 'After we get out of here we'll go together to the synagogue, I'll put on tefillin and observe Shabbat.' My dad repented, and it made me happy. We recited Psalms and the General Remedy. We sent messages to everyone we knew, asking them to pray for his recovery. The day he was supposed to awaken from sedation - my brother went to get a haircut to look good. It was a festive day for us. We even planned to buy helium balloons for him."

But the next day, she was awakened by a phone call from her aunt, her father's sister, telling them to come quickly. "I remember the day before I had already given up, I had no strength left to recite the General Remedy for his recovery, which I had done every day. And that night I went to sleep exhausted, I told myself whatever happens, happens. We arrived at the hospital in a flash, entered his room, and the doctors told us: '10 minutes ago he passed.'"

Standing Beside My Dear Father - Thanking the Creator

Our world was destroyed.

The thing that interested me the most now was just to elevate his soul. I went to his body, took his hand, and recited the General Remedy for the elevation of his soul. Naivety, I didn't know it was forbidden to do that, only after burying the body. We went to the area where they took the body before the burial society claimed it for the funeral. The bag above him was open, I saw my father lying there lifeless. I was in a period I wished would return.

Though I had nothing, I suffered terribly. I remember every day I tried to live anew and hold myself so as not to do something to myself. And yet, what held me were the personal moments of reflection I did every day, sometimes an hour and sometimes an hour and a half. I had a strong connection to the Holy One, Blessed be He. Everything that happened to me - I accepted. And after such a connection, it's simply saying thank you to Him.

I stood beside my dear father, and for half an hour I thanked the Creator of the world. Thank you for having a father for 26 years, thank you for having a father when there are those who don't, thank you very much for what happened, because if it is from you, it's the best. Thank you, Hashem, for having a father who cared for me and loved me. Thank you for everything.

And I asked my father when he goes up, to ask from whoever he must that I should merit many and help people. That I succeed in inspiring, succeed in reviving people, and succeed in influencing and enlightening. And all this wouldn't happen if I weren't close to Hashem.

Talk to Him, say thank you, ask from Him.

Draw close to Him, you don't know how much it can save you and how much it saves you every moment.

He is our Father, He loves us, does everything for our benefit. Even if we don't see it, He is a good Father.

When my father came back, even though he was no longer feeling well, the most important thing for him was to give my mom what she asked for: a box of cigarettes and Bamba. We will never forget this.

T.N.Z.B.H.", she concludes.