After three decades of marriage, I thought I knew everything about my husband, Tomer. I was wrong.
One evening in October 2023, I went outside to check the mailbox in our Florida suburb and found a white hearse parked in our driveway. Beneath the moonlight, it glittered like a ghostly apparition. I froze and wondered if death had finally come for us.
We’d each recently battled life-threatening health challenges. I’d survived a brain tumor while Tomer had undergone open-heart surgery. We were still in our 40s, and while medical intervention had bought us more time, my anxiety continued to soar. The sight of the hearse killed whatever stamina I had left for mindfulness and deep breathing. I started to scream.
Inside, Tomer lounged on the sofa.
“I think there’s a hearse in our driveway,” I yelled.
“Yep. I bought it.”
“You bought a hearse?”
“I got a great deal.”
Tomer worked for a commercial vehicle leasing company and sometimes drove home in a newly acquired limo or party bus. I figured the death van would be gone by morning.
The next day, I found Tomer outside, reaching into the back where the dead bodies go. He clutched a clump of white fluff from which he spun decorative webs.
“Come look,” he said.
Tomer had arranged our Halloween décor inside: plastic skulls, cemetery gates, and a canine zombie. I eyed the metal latches running across the vehicle’s floor and realized they must be what held the coffins in place.
“This will be our trick-or-treat station,” he said. “Like trunk-or-treat, but better.” He pointed at a carpeted edge. “The candy bowl will sit here.”
I wondered how many coffins had touched the same spot.
“Between my heart and your brain, we’ve missed years of fun,” Tomer said as he juggled a decorative gourd. “This Halloween, we’re taking back our lives.”
I couldn’t believe it. He never even watched scary movies with me. Was this sudden embrace of the macabre his way of managing mortal angst? If so, then I needed to support my spouse, but the hearse was creeping me out.
Tomer’s forearm brushed the vehicle’s interior as he repositioned a witch’s leg.
“You should wear gloves,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because of the bodies. What if one leaked through a coffin?”
“Nah. It’s brand new.”
I worried the dealer had lied and sold a used hearse to my unsuspecting husband.
My fingers curled into fists. Was I angry? Indeed. I felt furious that Tomer’s Halloween ambitions were forcing me to face fear yet again.
I stomped indoors. He kept decorating.
At the kitchen sink, I washed my hands again and again while wondering how I’d survive the next three weeks until Halloween. The hearse was surely going to contaminate our home. And even if it carried no infectious disease particles, it felt like Tomer had sent a vehicular invite out to the grim reaper himself.
I peeked through the window. The hearse had already attracted some neighbors.
As I watched Tomer laughing under the morning sunshine, it seemed hard to imagine that, less than a year earlier, congestive heart failure inhibited his ability to breathe. Now, he waltzed across the driveway with a stuffed scarecrow. Smiling beside the hearse, he looked more alive than ever.
I couldn’t spoil his happiness.
The month dragged by. On Halloween, I didn’t join Tomer in the trunk, but I wasn’t a killjoy either. He and our kids enjoyed a great night, and when he drove the hearse away in the morning, I bid it a final farewell and moved on too. I thought it was gone for good.
Six months later, in the spring of 2024, Tomer came home in a shiny white vehicle. He invited me for a spin. Its roomy interior included multiple rows of reclining seats, a flat-screen television and a bar.
“I’ve never seen a car like this.”
“It’s called a CEO/VIP vehicle,” he said.
I praised its lush interior.
Tomer patted the steering wheel. “This was the hearse. I hired a customizer to convert it. I’m keeping it for myself.”
It was a total transformation, and to my surprise, I didn’t freak out. On the contrary, I leaned back, closed my eyes, and relished the ride. I felt proud of my husband. He’d transformed an existential crisis into a luxury vehicle.
We enjoyed the summer months driving around in what felt like a paradoxical vehicle for fleeing death. Whenever someone complimented our car, I loved shocking them with the story of how it used to be a hearse.
But summer ended.
And then, we learned that Tomer’s heart was failing again. I couldn’t stop thinking that we’d lured death back by daring to ride around in a car originally intended for the deceased.
Tomer’s second open-heart procedure was scheduled a few days prior to Thanksgiving 2024. I waited in silent panic as my own heart raced.
The surgery was brutal. Tomer suffered a post-operative clog of his chest drains. Blood backed into his lung, causing hours of agony. Had it backed into his heart, it might have killed him.
He was still intubated when a surgeon came to update me in the family waiting room.
“We couldn’t repair his native tissue this time, so we gave him a pig valve. Hopefully, he’ll get 10 years out of it.”
Assuming nothing else kills Tomer first, his heart will need another operation.
I wanted us both to climb into bed and never leave. Maybe Tomer’s heart would last longer if we just rested, forever.
But he rejected my plan, triggering my anxiety all over again.
“Our 30th wedding anniversary is in six months,” he said. “After I recover, we’re going away without the kids.”
My heart palpitated. What if Tomer’s heart stopped beating mid-flight?
“We don’t know how much time we’ve got left,” he said.
“That’s why we should stay home.”
Tomer shook his head. “Life is never going to feel safe enough. We need to enjoy it anyway.”
I remembered how I endured my fear of the hearse. And how Tomer later turned that vehicle into something new.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll fly away with you.”
When our anniversary arrived this past May, we didn’t go far, but we made it to the Great Smoky Mountains. Emboldened, we’re planning future trips to farther places.
In the midst of everything we couldn’t control, we still had some degree of personal power: We could choose to explore the world despite the risks. Tomer helped me let go of fear while offering me something much healthier to hold onto — his hands.
When you cheat death more than once, you can either keep staring at it — paralyzed — or start dancing to the beat of the ticking clock. And if medical trauma wasn’t enough to drive this message home, Tomer’s hearse sure did.
Jen Gilman Porat is a writer and former clinical social worker whose essays have appeared in The Sun, Hippocampus, Brevity, Longreads, and elsewhere. She’s working on a memoir about the contested adoption of a baby girl she and her husband planned to adopt and were already caring for at home. The book explores how their marriage survived the ordeal—and the high-stakes moral decision it demanded in the face of ethical uncertainty.
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