PASSOVER

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56 | APRIL 14 • 2022 

p.m. and the baby wouldn’t eat. 
[Nervous that I would be late 
to meet up with Stan], I finally 
figured out why the baby didn’t 
want to eat. He was running a 
fever. So, I told the parents and 
they got mad at me, scream-
ing, ‘Get out! Go take out the 
trash!’”
She continued with her plan 
to meet Stan. Thankfully, he 
waited. 
When she finally got to his 
car, she apologized for being 
late and threw her stuff in the 
trunk and hid in the back seat, 
ready to hit the road. But then 
the car wouldn’t start! She said 
her heart began to race in panic, 
thinking it was all over.
“If they would have seen me 
… I would have never gotten 
away,
” she said.
What felt like forever might 
have only been seconds. 
Finally, the car started, and she 
screamed, “Go fast!” He asked 
her where she wanted to go. “I 
don’t care,
” she said. “Go fast, 
and let’s go now!”
Soon, they got to the mall. As 
it got later, Stan asked where he 
should take her next because he 
had to go back home. Anxious 
and not knowing where to go, 
my mom recalled having a 
phone number in her pocket 
from a kind Polish neighbor she 
met in passing. We will call him 
“Theo.
” 
Theo gave her a phone num-
ber a while back when they 

were moving out of the neigh-
borhood and said, “Someday 
you’re going to need this. Call 
me when you do.
” 
She found a pay phone and 
begged a stranger for some 
change to make the call that 
ultimately helped save her life. 
Theo knew exactly who it was 
and said, “Where are you? And 
who’s with you? Let me talk to 
them.
” 
Theo and Stan spoke to each 
other in Polish. After he hung 
up the phone, Stan said he 
was going to take her to Theo’s 
house. 

THE TRANSITION 
As we get ready retell the story 
of Passover each year, we always 
feel so incredibly connected 
to the Israelite’s Exodus from 

Egypt. We feel like God had a 
hand in leading my mom to her 
freedom. 
With the help of Stan 
and Theo, and after several 
transitions through families 
throughout Metro Detroit, my 
mom was finally able to make 
contact with her family in the 
Philippines by mail, letting 
them know she was safe. 
She eventually found a stable 
home with an Orthodox Jewish 
family in Oak Park. We will call 
them the “Yocheved” family. 
The Yocheveds gave my mom 
sanctuary as a live-in nanny. 
They also taught her what it 
meant to keep a Jewish home, 
all while encouraging her to go 
out, live her life and meet new 
people.
For the first time, my mom 

says, she felt like a free woman. 
Not long after, she met and 
began dating her future hus-
band — my father, Ben, an 
electrical engineering student 
at Michigan State University. 
Home from school over the 
summer, he would meet up 
with friends after work at a park 
in Oak Park. He noticed my 
mom, who had made friends 
with some of the kids in the 
group. My dad said he was 
immediately attracted to her, 
saying that her smile was “like 
sunshine.
”

STUCK IN CANADA
One day, the Yocheved family 
took my mom on an outing to 
Boblo Island, not realizing that 
it was in Canada. On their way 

“THAT NIGHT, BEN’S FAMILY WELCOMED 
ME IN THEIR HOME TO CELEBRATE 
PASSOVER. AFTER EVERYTHING THAT HAD 
HAPPENED … THINKING BACK ON HOW I 

GOT THERE, IT WAS A LOT.”

— REMY SWEET

The Sweet siblings all smiles at 
Rachel’s bat mitzvah ceremony: 
Jeremy, Amanda, Isaac and Rachel.

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