💔 I buried my daughter 💔

Hi ,

As you might have heard, my soon-to-be 2-year-old daughter had an accident and passed away a few weeks ago.

These past few weeks have been the hardest in my life, but I’m now feeling much better and slowly returning to work. This email is proof of that, and I’m here to provide value through a story that I hope will inspire you. This is not a “fun” email, so if you’re not into reading about my emotional rollercoaster, you should stop reading now 😉

October 7th - 8 months ago, war began in Israel. Over 1,000 dead and over 100 kidnapped. I knew this wouldn’t end in a few days or weeks, so I took my wife and three kids with two suitcases on the first available flight to Rome, Italy. We spent a few weeks there, and seeing the situation will not cool down anytime soon - We reevaluated our options. We didn’t want to stay in Europe for the winter or return to Israel, so we decided to go to Koh Samui, Thailand.

We spent our honeymoon in Thailand 8 years ago and thought it would be the perfect place for our family during this time. For the first two months, we stayed in hotels, and after a while, we moved to a proper 3-bedroom villa with a private pool. We’ve put our three kids in a good school and built ourselves a nice life in paradise.

I played tennis professionally for a few years as a kid. I missed it a lot and picked up Padel in Koh Samui. It’s a much easier, faster-paced game.

May 13 - About a month ago, while playing Padel, it started raining, but we kept playing anyway. I fell and twisted my knee. I hated myself for not stopping to play as soon as it started to rain, but that’s life.

I went straight to the hospital, and the doctor suggested an MRI. Nothing was broken, but my knee hurt badly every time I sat down or got up. I was concerned I couldn’t attend my event, Top Dog Summit, starting on June 3rd.

May 20 - I was sitting down in my favorite coffee place on the island. Thirty seconds after sitting down, I had my coffee on the table (they know what I like). Suddenly, the waitress touched my shoulder and said, “Get up, get up!!”

I looked down, and I saw something looking like this: ➡

Panicked, I got up quickly and hurt my (bad) knee against the table. Not taking a sip of my coffee yet, my MacBook Pro looked something like this:

I wiped what I could, but the laptop kept dripping coffee. In that moment, I hated myself for spilling over the coffee, for choosing that coffee place that morning, and a million other scenarios in my head that I could have done differently.

I got on Google Maps and looked up the closest Apple lab on the island. Can you imagine what that looks like? Well, you don’t have to, here you go:

Yes, it’s a house, and you see their kitchen and bedroom in the back. When I walked in, I explained what had happened. The guy took the laptop apart, filled with coffee all over it. He said, “Come back in a few hours; I’ll do what I can but can’t promise anything.”

After about 5 hours, I got this photo from the guy:

I drove back immediately and was happy to see my laptop was as good as new.

June 1st, 10 am - I knew I was flying out that day for two weeks to host my Top Dog Summit in Austria and, afterward, continuing to Poland to speak at another three-day event. Because of that, I took my wife and kids to have some fun that day. We went to feed Capybara in a cozy coffee place, built some Lego at a new place at the mall, and had a good time.

June 1st, 2:00 pm - We’re back home, and I turn on the TV with a movie for the kids to watch. They are exhausted from the long morning, and I need to finish packaging.

June 1st, 2:30 pm - I’m getting ready for my flight, packing clothes and things in my bedroom, and then seeing that my flight from Koh Samui to Bangkok got delayed, so I won’t be able to make my connection flight in time. My wife came into the bedroom to help me out as I was finishing packing, and we were able to get me an earlier flight, leaving at 6:30 pm, so I’ll make it in time to Bangkok.

June 1st, 2:33 pm - I hear my wife scream. I walk out of the bedroom and see my wife with my unconscious daughter outside the pool. Our youngest daughter went outside the house and stepped into the pool. Our daughter never left the house alone, and it wasn’t more than 2-3 minutes from the last time she entered our bedroom. My wife did CPR while I ran to the neighbors and asked them to call an ambulance. It took a while, but an ambulance arrived. My wife drove with it; our neighbor came to watch my other two kids so I could drive to the hospital.

June 1st, 5:20 pm - After more than two hours of CPR, our daughter was announced dead.

Everything was happening fast after that - The police took us back to the house to file a report, and we had our friends from the island pack up our house, arranging for the corpse to be shipped to Israel so we could bury our daughter there. All of this is happening when I know I have a flight I need to catch to my event.

June 1st, 7:00 pm - Back at my house, I found myself on a Zoom call with a team member. I recorded the call and reviewed my slides so the team could take over at the summit without me being there.

June 6th - We buried our daughter in Israel. I don’t want to go into too much detail here, but I decided to speak at the funeral itself, and one of the things I said was: “Instead of you missing me for two weeks, I will miss you my entire life. I love you.”

Why did I tell you all of this? And what do the rest of the stories have to do with my daughter's death?

Well, life hits you. Constantly. You think your knee might be dead because you’ve twisted it or that your laptop is gone because you’ve spilled coffee all over it. You think your business is done because you were suspended or because that product you’ve been selling successfully for over a year has a patent. The truth is, it’s tough to value what you have until you lose it. People are usually blind when it comes to something they take for granted.

“How you do one thing is how you do everything.” - I’m sure you’ve heard this saying often. So, how can I implement this based on what happened? Like anything I do in business, I’ll learn from those who are more experienced than me - in this case, I talked to other fathers who similarly lost their young kids. My biggest realization was - I cannot blame myself, my wife, my older kids, or anyone for what happened. One father told me, “Blame only happens in court.”As I’ve mentioned, life hits you. Constantly. All you can do is get up and try your best the next day. Also, it can always be worse. I spoke to a father who lost their only child after years of trying to conceive. I spoke to another father who was with his child when it happened, and it took years for his wife not to blame him for it. I spoke to a different single father who already divorced and lost one of his kids. It’s not a competition, but remember, it can always be worse.

Be grateful for what you have, for the legs that allow you to walk, for the laptop lifestyle that allows you to work from anywhere, and please - Right now, go hug and kiss your spouse and kids.

Tomer

P.S

Any message or email helps. Over the past few weeks, I have received a lot of love from many of you, and I thank you. I’m not yet able to respond or talk too much about it, but your messages are helping me move on. I read every single one. Feel free to email me back or comment on my post on Facebook.

Be grateful every day.

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