Two years later, Mirlana Morris remembers her son Donny — and the smile that lit up the world

The post-high school stint in Israel has become a hallowed rite of passage in our communities. In late summer, in airports across the world, clusters of mothers surreptitiously wipe away tears, fathers call out last-minute instructions, and their 18-year-old progeny hurry toward the check-in counters, wheelies in tow.

Most mothers anticipate a reunion with their child during a winter visit to Israel, when he returns for Pesach, or for some, at the end of the year. But for Mirlana Morris, this airport goodbye was the last time she would ever see her son Donny.

“A picture popped up on my phone from when we took him to the airport, the last day I ever saw him,” Mirlana shares, “and he’s walking away from us. All you see is his back and a little wheelie.

“And it’s so crazy, the captions with the choice of words we used back then and how much meaning they have now, because for that picture I wrote ‘Goodbyes are never easy.’ ”

It was the hardest goodbye she ever had to say.

Mirlana’s son, Donny Morris, was one of the 45 kedoshim tragically killed in the Meron disaster. A resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, Donny had been a first-year student at Yeshivat Shaalvim who was known as an exemplary talmid, a model of diligence in learning, and an unusually caring friend.

When Donny left to Israel in Elul of 2020, he planned on returning to Teaneck for Pesach break. But Covid had deemed reentry to Israel an uncertain thing, and Donny, for whom learning was a supreme value, worried he would not be able to return to yeshivah after Pesach. He canceled his plans and stayed. A month later he joined the masses of people migrating to Meron to celebrate Lag B’omer.