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August 8, 2025 at 8:27 PM, the message was read, but there was no reply;

Jaime was no longer responsive

I had no idea that everything was going to go down so quickly, whether that everything be how quickly I was going to get the money, how quickly the relationship would be over, and neatly it would be wrapped up, like a bow on top of a birthday present. The day it began was without a doubt this:

August 7th.

The last day I saw Jaime in the office. That day was like any day other we would work together, we would both do our own thing and keep it pretty professional, while also still flirting in our own special way.

We worked side by side since the day she met. We started working together around January or so but I didn’t want to take Jaime seriously until she got her insurance license. Her getting the license is what kicked of the conversation, which started on Shabbat, at the end of a work-week we had likely spent 35+ hours together.

Over the course of working at Mariner Finance I probably wrote a 100 or so loans in my own name and virtually all of Jaime’s loans. She was helpless, but at the same time she was sweet, and over time you could see notable improvements into the way she handled customers, the way she participated in the office, and the way she built relationships with people outside of the office. I thought Jaime was beautiful from the moment I met her, but I wanted to wait until she got her insurance license before taking our conversation outside of the office: it started with a picture of Blooms,

Shabbat, Friday April 4

This is the story of Jaime.

I sat at the desk to Jaime’s left

I sat in her chair myself

I sat in the first booth of our office with her

I sat in the second booth of our office with her

I sat in that third booth of our office with her

We locked eyes at the printer everyday

I wrote her name in my Tanakh

8/24/25 ❤️🖤

With a red heart for her, and a black heart from me, written in my book for all of eternity.

That was the last thing I said to her. I saw her a few weeks later in the ICU, and then I saw her again on the day she died. I’ve lost a lot of friends, but this was the first time I had actually seen a dead body of a loved one with my own eyes. It was horrifying, the entire experience. Seeing her family and the way they reacted to everything, seeing her social media posts and her subtle cries for help, including the way she reached out to me the last day we spoke, and seeing the way our associates considered her dead and tried to replace her, before her body had even gone cold.

The insurance business is weirdly cutthroat.