If he could talk to us now, what would he say?

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fter a loved one’s passing, pictures and videos of them naturally become more precious.

My brother, Yehuda Leib Greenwald, was the epitome of good health and positive energy. His sudden cardiac arrest on March 11, 2024, was a major shock to everyone who knew him. Yehuda Leib remained in a coma for two months before having another cardiac arrest and passing away on May 13. He was 36.

During the week of shivah, I asked his close friend, Chaim Pil, to please share any pictures and videos he had of Yehuda Leib with us, his family.

Chaim answered, “Are you kidding?! Yehuda Leib was our photographer! All our pictures are on his phone...”

The phone remains a locked treasure chest — no one knows the password.

The weeks following the shivah were hard. We ached to talk about him, but the flocks of visitors had disappeared. Our new reality echoed with a void that was loud and painful.

We played the videos of Yehuda Leib over and over, listened to his old WhatsApp voice notes organizing airport rides and PayPal payments from months ago, just to hear his voice.

It was all so abrupt. There was so much left unsaid, and we wondered: Did he know he would be gone so soon? Did he suffer? If he could talk to us now, what would he say?