As we transported the father to our ambulance, I informed one son that he could come with us in the ambulance, or he could drive behind us in his own car. He decided on the latter — a fateful decision.

We had driven only a few blocks when the patient whispered, “Pull over.”

Interesting.

We stopped at the side of the street.

“Please leave me on the side of the road to die alone,” he croaked. “I’m embarrassed to meet G-d.”

“Sir,” my partner said, in an attempt to ease the patient’s conscience, “G-d loves all of His children.”

“You don’t understand,” he replied. “I was born Yitzchok ben Shulem. My father and I were the only ones from our entire family to survive the Holocaust. After the war, my father said to me, ‘Yitzchok, do not marry a Jewish girl. If this is what happens to Yidden, you need to stay far away from Klal Yisrael.’ ”

He listened to his father, he related, and married a non-Jewish girl, with whom he had several children.

“I’m not leaving behind any Jewish vestige of myself in this world,” he said. “That’s why I’m so ashamed to meet G-d. I should have known better. I made the wrong choices my whole life. I’m dying now, and I have absolutely nothing to show for my time on earth.”

“Reb Yid,” my partner said, “the Gemara tells us that a person can do teshuvah even in the final hour of his life. You may be leaving this world, but you still have the opportunity to have remorse for your misdeeds. You can still be mekabel on yourself to do teshuvah — even now.”

“This doesn’t apply to someone like me — it can’t,” he said pitifully.

“It does, one hundred percent. You are exactly the kind of person the Torah is talking about.”

The patient’s expression showed that our words were making an impression.

“Tell me, do you really regret your life decisions?” my partner asked.

“Yes.”

“We’re going to say Vidui with you, the prayer Jewish people say before their souls go back to Heaven.”

As we said Vidui together, it became clear that he still remembered some of the words, and he began to cry in earnest.

When we finished, we continued on to the hospital, where he was admitted to the Emergency Room. A few hours later, I returned to the same hospital with another patient. I asked after our first patient and was informed that he had passed away.

Like a Yid, having said Vidui.

For the rest of my time as a paramedic, I looked at every call as an opportunity. Because you just never know whom you are going to meet or what their story is. You may just end up being the shaliach to help someone like Yitzchok ben Shulem earn his ticket to Olam Haba.

All names and identifying details have been changed.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1054)