Facebook COO pays homage to late husband after sheloshim mourning period

SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg died unexpectedly last month while on vacation in Mexico.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Facebook Chief Operating Office Sheryl Sandberg (photo credit: REUTERS)
Facebook Chief Operating Office Sheryl Sandberg
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, paid touching tribute to her late husband on Wednesday with a moving post to mark the end of the sheloshim mourning period.
Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died unexpectedly last month, leaving behind two children.
The SurveyMonkey CEO succumbed to a head injury he sustained while exercising at a resort in Mexico. He fell off a treadmill at a private villa in Punta Mita and hit his head, Mexican prosecutors said.
Goldberg's brother found him on the floor of the villa gym showing signs of life, the spokesman said. Goldberg was taken to the hospital, where he later died.
“Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband - the first thirty days,” Sandberg wrote on her Facebook page. “Judaism calls for a period of intense mourning known as shiva that lasts seven days after a loved one is buried. After shiva, most normal activities can be resumed, but it is the end of sheloshim that marks the completion of religious mourning for a spouse.”
“A childhood friend of mine who is now a rabbi recently told me that the most powerful one-line prayer he has ever read is: ‘Let me not die while I am still alive.’ I would have never understood that prayer before losing Dave. Now I do.”
“I think when tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning. These past thirty days, I have spent many of my moments lost in that void. And I know that many future moments will be consumed by the vast emptiness as well.”
“But when I can, I want to choose life and meaning.”
 

Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband—the first thirty days. Judaism calls for a period of intense...

Posted by Sheryl Sandberg on Wednesday, June 3, 2015