It was just a few hours before the second Passover seder when I got a call from my mother in Mexico. It was around 11 a.m. — 10 a.m. in Mexico City — a very unusual time for her to call, as she’s usually just waking up then. And she typically doesn’t call me on Saturdays. Something was clearly wrong. When I answered the phone, my fears were realized: My grandfather, my mother’s father and my last living grandparent, was very ill, and the doctors had given him at most a few hours to live. I started making arrangements for...