My husband and I fell into each other’s arms. Rowan’s body trembled as he buried his head into my shoulder. Like a wounded animal, I wailed, my body collapsing under the weight of grief.
I didn’t sleep much, but I woke up in the morning knowing that Eli’s legacy, his mission to bring light and love to the world, would not die with him. Through the hours of conversations, he had prepared me to be his torch-bearer.
Rowan and I attended Eli’s funeral. The state premier of New South Wales, the Honorable Chris Minns, was there, as well as other politicians and a vast crowd of friends and family. Through a veil of tears and deep pain, Eli’s father-in-law, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, the chief rabbi who Eli assisted at the Bondi Chabad Centre, addressed the coffin and said in his eulogy.
“Eli, from the moment you married Chaya you became a son to us as much as she’s our daughter. And you became everything to me, my hands, my head, my heart, my feet,” I remember him saying. “I relied on you for everything. You’re my son, my friend, my confidant.”