Izzy Kiver immigrated from Ukraine, struggled with isolation, and lost a brother to suicide. After a spiritual experience in Oregon, he realized home is internal and founded a nonprofit to help others through education and kindness.
Ten years ago, my brother saved my life after he took his own. This is my story.
As a young boy, I always felt like an outsider looking in. Immigrating from Ukraine, an ever quiet fit. Schoolwork, friendships, it was all a struggle. It was only my older brother who always accepted me the way I was.
I thought, if I can't blend in, I'll stand out for the right reasons. So I trained to be the best tutors, extra homework, pushing myself beyond my grade level.
But challenge after challenge kept hitting at 15, suspended at 17, kicked out even when I thought I had found a safe haven, settling back in my homeland. In Ukraine, war broke out. Forced to flee again each time. But yet the biggest shock came a decade ago while I was away on conference. My brother had taken his life. His passing brought only more doubt, more struggle, hate, betrayal, suffering. These emotions were my only companions. My mind couldn't stop seeing the world as a place that was there to harm me. Finally, I found stability in software engineering. And so, just like before in my childhood studies, I poured my heart into it. I reached top Silicon Valley companies, yet my happiness still fell short. Years of searching for healing brought me to Ashland, Oregon, where everything changed. During a prayer ceremony, I realized I'd been like a fly at the window, Trapped behind the glass, blind to the escape that was right there. All I needed to do was step back and see the opening that had always been there. In that moment of clarity, I found forgiveness. The crushing weight of guilt of not saving my brother lifted. And then I felt him feel in
that moment, my brother's spirit is right there with me. As if all of the years of pain, anguish, guilt, and just this hate inside me, this pain of why did he go and why didn't he tell me? What he was planning on doing just goes away an instant. It's replaced with empathy, love and understanding. And I truly felt his spirit in that moment.
His presence wrapping around me like a warm embrace. In that breaking open, I found something I'd never had. I realized home wasn't a place, it was a feeling I could carry anywhere. I stopped running from myself and discovered I could choose where my mind focuses toward light instead of darkness.
In that moment, I understood my purpose. It was to be a guiding light, a guardian angel to others. Just like my brother was to me.
Within a month, I incorporated coe, a non profit organization, on a mission to harmonize humanity through education and loving kindness. This direction gave me courage, patience, and most of all, understanding.
To build a world of love, acceptance and healing, we must give a part of who we are to become something more.
As one thinks and believes, so it shall be
it.
