Teens without a parent give the rest of us a window into their world

How does a child navigate the loss of a parent? How does a yasom, who just wants to feel normal and cringes at sappy sympathy, get over the hurdle of going back to school or yeshivah after the week of shivah, when friends feel awkward and even teachers might not have the right words? While life looks regular on the outside, yesomim take off their brave masks and tell the rest of us what they wish we knew

BY the time I was seven years old, my life was already up to Plan B. I lost my father to a sudden heart attack in the spring of first grade, and overnight, everything changed. In an instant I felt the weight of responsibility on my young shoulders, to care for my younger brother, to cheer up my mother, and to make the most of every moment because my seven-year-old mind had realized that life is a limited contract and only G-d knows the end date.

On the outside, life went on as usual, but on the inside, my feelings were still in free fall. Teachers casually mentioned fathers, and I flinched. Friends flippantly remarked, “I almost had a heart attack,” and my heart thumped. Forms routinely asked for my father’s details, and I had nothing to fill into those harsh blank lines.

But I knew that I came from strong stock, from women who knew how to soldier on. After all, my grandmother lost her husband suddenly at a young age, and she raised wonderful children, later teaching special-needs students with extreme devotion. At the time, my mother was 17, but the crushing blow didn’t break her — she went on to build an accomplished life as a mother, author, and professor of journalism. And so I, too, chased my dreams with all I had. I studied in Israel, realized I wanted to settle there, and married a creative, spiritually-striving fellow from Rochester NY, who felt the same way. After a few years in Jerusalem we settled in the suburb of Beitar.

While I’d done writing and translating on a part-time basis when my children were younger, as they grew, I stepped further into the world of the printed word. Yet only in middle age, after working on articles and books on subjects ranging from houseboats to high tech, did I begin to tap into my personal journey with loss. In 2016, via a post on the Soferet writers’ email list, Sarah Rivkah Kohn, founder and director of Links Family, an organization that supports children who have lost a parent, was looking for writers who had personal experience with loss to pen fiction stories for their newsletters. I definitely qualified, and so I began writing, one story after the next, sometimes crying for the main characters and sometimes crying for my seven-year-old self.

Who knew I had so much to say on the subject? Only my husband knew my story; I had never even spoken with my own children about my loss. There were no support organizations when I was a girl, and I grabbed at my chance to take everything I knew about loss and everything I knew about writing and write the stories I wished had been around when I was a kid.

In November 2024, I published more than 40 of those stories as an illustrated book, Invisible Tribe: Stories of Strength and Encouragement for Children Coping with the Loss of a Parent. I also put an email address at the back for readers who wanted to suggest ideas for future stories or strike up a loss-related conversation. That was how 14-year-old Esti* found me, and with her mother’s blessing, began writing to share story ideas and describe some of the challenges she had faced since losing her father four years earlier. As our communication bounced back and forth, I realized that Esti had a message to share, and that I might be the right messenger to share it. I also spoke to other children who had lost a parent, seeking insights into what they wish all of us knew. The following are some takeaways.