In February 2002, I was at the CBS bureau in the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. I read a wire report that a journalist from the Wall Street Journal was missing in Karachi. I read another wire. I knew that something was wrong and volunteered to take a camera crew and go there; CBS agreed.

We soon learned that journalist’s name was Daniel Pearl, and that he was murdered by a group led by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a Pakistani-born British citizen. I sat in a courtroom in Karachi when the police brought Sheikh and two other men, with blankets over them and sat them on the wood floor behind us. My fixer told me there was video of his execution and asked if I wanted to see it. I said no. I called New York and officials took over and CBS acquired the video.

On February 16th, 2008, I crossed illegally in disguise from Afghanistan into the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, on a book contract from Times Books. I wanted to write about the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, off-limits to foreigners: what my editor called a blank space on the map. I wanted to find men I knew — particularly the Haqqanis, then our allies — when I spent time here as a fledgling correspondent for The New York Times, covering the Afghan-Soviet war.

I was hiking with my two bodyguards and fixer in the mountains of Mohmand Agency when I became the second American journalist kidnapped in Pakistan. After I was freed, I learned that Michael Semple, an Irish convert to Islam and a UN official, with ties to British intelligence, was responsible for my release. He came to Washington for a meeting and I met him there. “We did all we could,” he said, “to prevent a second Daniel Pearl.” I felt humbled. I was alive and Daniel Pearl was not.

In 2010, my book was published. I gave a talk one night at a journalists’ organization in New York, and I talked about this. Afterwards, as I was signing a book, a man stood before me and asked if I thought I would have survived if I was Jewish. I felt myself shudder. I thought back to some of the questions that my fixer, and later my main jailer asked me in captivity, one of which was, “did I eat pork?”

I wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Pearl in Los Angeles, and after debating with myself whether it was a good idea or not, I included a copy of my book. Mrs. Pearl wrote back and asked me to come see them on my next trip to Los Angeles; in 2011, I wrote and said I was coming. I flew to Portland, Oregon and went to a memorial for a friend I had run track with in college, at Nike headquarters in Beaverton. Then I flew to Los Angeles and called the Daniel Pearl Foundation. Mrs. Pearl gave me the name of a restaurant where we could meet for lunch. I sat in the parking lot, again, wondering if I was going to cause Mr. and Mrs. Pearl more pain, but I felt driven to see them. I wasn’t sure why. I sat in the lobby and Narda Zacchino, a prominent journalist, and director of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, joined me. I felt relieved.

Judea and Ruth Pearl came in and I was taken at how slim, and elegant and stylish she was. We ordered lunch and Mr. Pearl asked why I was here. I was hurt, but I understood. I told them what Michael had said: I was alive because of their son. I wanted to help them, to ease their pain, but I felt that I was making it worse. I told them that when I went through two mock executions one night, as I faced the camera I thought of Daniel Pearl. “Danny was with you there, wasn’t he,” said Mrs. Pearl, warmly. She got up and came around the table and I stood up and she hugged me. I felt, for the first time, that I did the right thing to come there. Maybe I was helping her, too. She said they were holding an event at the Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Van Nuys the next day, and invited me to join them. We stood to go and as Judea and I shook hands, awkwardly, I saw the tears in his eyes, and I understood. I knew at that moment that I had a responsibility to keep his son’s name alive.

The next day, I joined them at the school. Judea, a professor at UCLA – who had just won the Turing Award (known as the Nobel Prize in computer science) for his work that led to the creation of Siri voice recognition technology – gave a talk in the gymnasium for students and guests. Ruth asked me to sit with her, and I was grateful and felt warm sitting there, like I was her son. She told me that she was born in Baghdad and went to a French school; I wondered if that’s where she got her sense of style. I thought of my mother and her proud French heritage, and her love of fashion. Ruth spoke French, Arabic, Hebrew and English. In 1951, her family left Iraq for Iran. It was there that she met Judea, and they later married in Israel.

It came time to go, and Ruth said they were going to put me to work. I said I would help them. She gave me a book of her son’s writing and other materials. Mr. Pearl and I went for a walk outside and talked quietly. It came time to say goodbye and Ruth and I hugged one another.

We talked on the phone on occasion. I called her a year ago, and for the first time her voice seemed older and quieter: “We thought it would be easier as time passed, but it is harder now. People call and threaten us and the antisemitism is worse.” Her voice trailed off and then she kept talking quietly. She wanted to talk, and I listened. I was sad and angry that people could be so cruel, but I was happy too that she felt that she could talk to me. I was, in some small way, I felt, like her son, as she that day in Los Angeles, was like my mother, who had died long ago. Ruth is now gone, like her son. I am glad that she no longer has to feel any pain. She was so strong, so welcoming, so gracious, and kind to me.

Journalist Jere Van Dyk, who has covered Afghanistan for over 30 years, and for 15 years was with CBS News, is working on a book on the Haqqani Network in the greater Middle East.

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