A Near-Death Encounter, A Father’s Legacy

A Near-Death Encounter, A Father’s Legacy

From Bereaved But Still Me by Anna Jaworski

March 5, 2026 · 34 min · Season 10 · Episode 3

About this episode

Judy Tashbook Safern shares her profound near-death experience and the impact of her father's passing on her life and faith.

Grief isn’t an ending; it’s a relationship that changes. Judy Tashbook Safern joins us with a story that stops the clock: cascading surgeries, pneumonia, and a coma that opens into an enveloping light and a felt encounter with God. She returns with a message—“you are necessary”—only to learn that her father, a larger-than-life psychoanalyst and professor who built Jewish community in West Texas, has been diagnosed with advanced liver cancer and passes within days. The timeline feels like a switch, a mystery that begs hard questions about fate, faith, and why one life continues while another concludes. We explore the details that make this more than a headline. Judy paints her father through action: freezer trucks of kosher meat hauled across states, hand-typed holiday invitations posted around a university and an Air Force base, and a seven-hour drive to Dallas and back for Passover staples. When she wakes, pain floods back; survivor’s guilt arrives fast. Grounded in Jewish mourning practices—shiva, shloshim, and a year of gentler abstentions—she sits shiva alone on a hospital floor, 10,000 miles from her family, learning how ritual can still hold when improvised. She also draws…

People in this episode

Host: Anna Jaworski

Guest: Judy Tashbook Safern

Topics covered

  • grief
  • near-death experience
  • father-daughter relationship
  • Jewish mourning practices
  • faith
  • survivor's guilt

Keywords

  • grief
  • near-death encounter
  • father's legacy
  • Jewish rituals
  • survivor's guilt
  • faith
  • community

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