Grief-stricken dad Israel Mayer described the difficulty of losing two daughters to depression on Monday as he eulogized his oldest at a Hasidic chapel in Brooklyn.
“Both my eyes are crying, one for each child,” said the anguished father, while speaking in Yiddish to some 100 people at Shomrei Hadas Chapels in Borough Park.
“I’m asking forgiveness from you if I didn’t do enough for you,” he added. “I saw you suffering and I tried my best.”
Loved ones and mourners did their best to console Mayer as they poured into the synagogue for the funeral of 31-year-old Sara Mayer — the second child he has lost in less than six months.
Sara’s younger sister Faigy, a former Hasid, jumped to her death from a Manhattan rooftop bar on July 20. It was later revealed that the 30-year-old had become deeply depressed after leaving the ultra-conservative Jewish community in which she was raised.
Sara would be discovered dead Sunday night by their own mother. Police sources say her mom found her lifeless body hanging from an electrical cord on their home’s staircase.
On Monday, Mayer described how he had tried to help both daughters with their depression by hospitalizing them in recent years.
“We put her in this hospital, we put her in that hospital, until her soul left her,” he said of Sara, who had just been released last Tuesday from the South Beach Psychiatric Center in Staten Island, where she had been an inpatient for two years, sources said.
“From my my eyes … tears pour,” Mayer explained. “You never wanted to burden me. You never spoke badly about people. You can’t judge somebody until you’ve stood in her shoes. If you do, God will put you in that situation, and let’s see how you handle it.”
The devastated dad also broke down and sobbed in the front row of the synagogue while reviewing the notes for his daughter’s eulogy.
“When you go to heaven you’re going to meet your sister and your forefathers,” Mayer said. “Like your forefathers who gave everything of themselves, you were the same. Two months when you were in the hospital you gave everything from yourself. You even gave bread for the birds. When you go up to heaven, pray for us that we don’t know of any more sorrows.”
He finished in English, saying, “Be clean from any judgment. Thank you.”