Sigalit Shemer continues to grieve for her son, Ron Shemer, who was murdered on October 7 by Hamas terrorists last year during the deadly Nova Music Festival attack. Ron was a 23-year-old resident of Lod in Israel, attending the festival with a group of childhood friends when shots rang out in the early morning. Some of his friends managed to get into a car and escape, but Ron decided to leave the car to find two of his friends, Dan and Omer. After finding them, the three of them hid in a bus shelter near the festival. After hearing about the attack, Sigalit frantically tried to reach Ron. When he finally did call, his last words to his mother were assurance. “He said, ‘Don’t be afraid. My battery is low but I’m going to come home. Don’t be afraid,” Sigalit told The Christian Post.

Piecing together information from survivors of the attack, Hamas terrorists began throwing grenades into the shelter where Ron and his friends were hiding. Omer, who survived the attack, stated Ron told them to get behind him for protection. Both Dan and Omer were hurt, with Dan eventually dying from his wounds. Ron then fought with terrorists who entered the shelter, forcing them out. Omer later told Sigalit he believed Ron’s actions saved his life. Ron was shot in the head outside the shelter. Days would pass before his parents would receive the news that he had been killed during the attacks, not taken as a hostage as originally believed. His funeral was October 13.

Sigalit’s grief caused her to leave her work as an event producer. She now cares for dogs two days a week, something her son enjoyed doing. “I want people to know that my son and all of the murdered boys and girls on the 7th of October are lost for the world. Many people in Israel lost their sons and daughters for nothing. Just for nothing,” she told Fox News. Her grief goes deep. “After his death, I didn’t work for like 10 months. I couldn’t get out of bed or the house. There’s no life. I’m feeling like I’m not a wife, not a mother, not anything,” she told CP.

Sigalit and her husband, Oren, receive support from OneFamily, a group that helps families impacted by terror. Sigalit is able to share her experiences with other mothers of murdered children. Slowly, it’s helping her to live again. “It takes a lot of courage and strength to smile again for the first time or to take a little bit of joy to say, let’s go out to dinner tonight,” said Sigalit. “Sometimes, the guilt and the grief and bereavement is too strong, and people can’t do that. So, OneFamily, really with open arms and a lot of love, does everything they can to get them to want to come back to life again.”