One day I woke up and I was 25 years old
with three kids by myself, a widow[er].
And I needed to decide what else I'm doing in life,
like how I move on.
It was basically a sort of regular day.
I woke up early, I brought the kids to kindergarten,
I dropped them all off and then I went to pray
and then I came and I saw that Merav wasn't home.
Time was passing, 9:00, 10:00
and I didn't know what was going on,
so I called Merav’s mother and she said,
"Don't worry, she probably just went..."
She used to go a lot to hike
then about another couple hours,
Merav’s family started to get involved
and her brother was looking for her
and I was trying to figure out where she was.
I went to where she was working and she wasn't there
and they got the army involved and they were
doing search teams and I was at home with the kids.
10:00 at night in walked the mayor of the municipality
and they said, "Come sit down," they said.
The army found Merav
and she died.
What happened was that she went for a walk
next to our house, we live on a nature reserve
and she fell from a high point, she hit her head
and that's when they told me that Merav died.
I went into the kids' room
and I lied down with them for a while.
It wasn't just a tough period,
it was like a developing period where in the beginning
it was just like a huge shock.
I figured like I'm in this new situation
and I gotta figure out what we're doing now
and I gotta focus on the kids just so that
they don't get super screwed up from this.
(light music)
I had a five year old, a three year old,
and a one year old, which was five and a half years ago
so I pretty much raised them and they came out awesome.
Three kids and my kids are amazing.
Each one of then is amazing.
These are the three of them.
This is (speaking in Hebrew)
and my niece, Zoe Merav, she's named after my wife.
When people asked me how I got through tragedy,
in my mind I just don't understand how life works
and that's fine for me
because I don't understand a lot of things
and there's something comforting in that
where you're not in control of everything,
basically recognizing the fact that we're not in control
is something that is strengthening.
What's important is how we live life now
and what you do with life.
I'm raising three kids by myself.
I'm finishing up my MBA,
I work in high tech in Jerusalem and I'm a partner
in a vineyard and winery.
I have an amazing life I think.
I'm blessed and I thank God every day for who I am
and hopefully I'll get even better.
The best therapy for me was driving to work everyday
listening to music in the car,
I would sing along, yell along.
♪ No one ever said it would be this hard ♪
It was better than any other therapy
that I tried to go through other times.
♪ Take me back to the start ♪