For 31 years, Chaya Levy embodied life: reveling in it, maximizing it. And when she was diagnosed with cancer in the early stages of her pregnancy, she resolved she'd give her unborn child the greatest gift: life. Throughout the excruciating months of illness, she fought to see only Hashem’s good — and to show it to others

Thirty-one years ago, on Shabbos parshas Shemos, a baby girl was named Chaya. Her father chose Chaya from the pasuk “V’tchayenah es hayeladim — and they let the children live,” referring to Miriam and Yocheved’s refusal to end the lives of infant boys condemned to die.

The name — and the intention behind it — would prove prophetic. or 31 years later, Chaya Asiyag Levy carried her son inside her until the end, loving him, protecting him, birthing him, until her neshamah returned itself to its Maker merely one week after his birth.

Diagnosed with cancer when she was four months pregnant, she protected her unborn child with all her strength, determined to give life to her baby.

Life. It was her essence, it was her passion.

Chaya Levy loved life. She reveled in it. So much so, that seconds before the bris on her first son was performed, she ran to her husband. “Let’s add the name Simchah,” she whispered urgently. And so he was called Reuvein Simchah. Because Chaya infused simchas hachaim into everything she touched.

In the teeming shivah home, the same words were heard from visitor after visitor. Tzanuah. Hakaras hatov. Ayin tovah. Emunah. And purity. Always purity.

 (Excerpted from Family First, Issue 607)