"I don't know how to sum up Yohay in words. He was everything – completely devoted to me and the girls. I always felt like we were his top priority," said Shira Glam, 27, widow of Master sergeant (res.) Yohay Hay Glam, 32, from Netanya, who was killed Wednesday by a sniper near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.
The couple has twin daughters, nearly two years old. "We had so many dreams for the girls and for our future children. Yohay really wanted to adopt a child, and all of that was taken from us in an instant," she said.
Yohay served in the 6310 Reconnaissance Battalion of the Jerusalem Brigade (16th). The battle in which he fell occurred during his third reserve duty since the war began on October 7. Hundreds of people accompanied Yohay to his final resting place Wednesday night at the military section of the Netanya cemetery. "You went to save lives, and we promise you: We will not give up. We will bring everyone home," his brother Ofer eulogized.
I can’t even bring myself to say the word 'widow'
Shira, who works in a lab at Laniado Hospital, described the moment she was informed of her husband's death: "My sister was watching the girls while I was at work. She asked me when I would be home, and I told her in half an hour. I joked with her, asking if she had lost her patience already. She didn’t answer and asked again when I was coming. I felt something was wrong. I called her, but she was on another call. I sent her a voice message, asking why she was making me nervous, and then my sister-in-law’s partner called, telling me to come home.
"On my way back, my mom suddenly called too. When everyone started calling, I knew something had happened, but I never imagined Yohay was dead. When I got home, my sister-in-law initially blocked me from seeing the casualty officer, but then I saw him. He grabbed me to keep me from collapsing and said, 'Yohay was killed in Gaza.' It was a horrific moment. It’s impossible to comprehend something like that. It feels like I’m disconnected from everything here like I’m in a movie. I can’t even bring myself to say the word 'widow.'"
Shira met Yohay online after almost giving up on dating. "I had gone on a few dates with some strange guys, and just when I decided I was done with it, Yohay sent me a message on Facebook," Shira recalled. "I looked at his pictures and thought he was so handsome. When we started talking, I thought, 'How can he be both good-looking and have values?' It didn’t seem real. It was too good to be true. My sister and a friend convinced me to go out with him."
She added: "My competitive spirit wouldn’t let me give up, so we talked for a week before our first date. I didn’t talk much during that date, but he kept the conversation going. There was a light in his eyes from the start. From the moment we got married, we were living the dream – not because we had too much, but because we were simply living a normal life. He was a dad who came home every day from work, fully devoted and involved. It was important to him that everything was organized, that the girls were taken care of, and that I was looking after myself. He would give me all the time I needed to vent. He was always there for me, and I never understood how I got so lucky."
Shira said Yohay was excited to become a father and was overjoyed when he learned they were expecting twins. "I got pregnant seven or eight months after we got married, but I miscarried after nine weeks. After that, I got pregnant with the twins, and they were born two years after our wedding. He had such deep anticipation for children. He wanted so badly to hold them and was so happy when he heard it was two girls."
"The last 11 months, I was almost entirely on my own since Yohay was called up for three rounds of reserve duty," Shira shared. "We barely spoke during the first two rounds, but during this last one, he took his phone and would turn it on during breaks. We talked every couple of days. He called on Friday to tell me that I’d hear on the news about injuries, but that he was okay. On Sunday, he said, 'I know you’ll hear on the news that there were fatalities, but don’t worry, I’m fine.'"
In recent weeks, Shira felt a sense of foreboding. "He was home last week; he arrived on Monday night and left Thursday morning," she said. "We made the most of that time as a family and took a trip to Jerusalem. After we finished the trip, we had a late-night conversation, and he said such beautiful things to me. I asked him, 'Why are you summing me up? You can sum me up later when you get back.' I had a heavy feeling like he sensed something. He told me how much I meant to him. We didn’t get to celebrate his 32nd birthday, and now we won’t celebrate the next one, or the girls’ birthday in two weeks, or our anniversary in two days."
Through tears, Shira said: "The girls are still too young to understand. I’ll tell them that their dad was a man of strength, quiet and humble, a hero who never gave up on us. They still don’t understand, and they see pictures of him and think he’s still on reserve duty. They see the pictures on the fridge and the door and say, 'Daddy, Daddy.' One of them pointed to his picture and ran to the gate because she remembered that’s where we met Daddy. They’re very attached to him."