Funny thing

I had a very good day today. A Uzi-is-in-a-hospital-unconscious-due-to-severe-concussion-and-that's-why-he-cannot-call day [this is a fantasy I share w his mum]. Scenario B, Uzi-is-on-a-small-island-in-bad-shape-being-taken-care-of-by-a-non-English-speaking-fisherman-and-that's-why-he-cannot-call day [this is a fantasy I share w a friend of ours, L., though it's an old Thai woman in hers. I say, whatever works]. He is not dead. Even as I use the past tense at times, even if I know I am in denial, I know I am not, not really, because somehow somewhere he is alive and will come back to us. And that's that. Or I'll be really, really, REALLY pissed off. And destroyed but remember he is alive? Good.

That being said, I did spend most of yesterday's dawn looking at unidentified bodies from the morgue and police sites. And today was the ceremony on the kibbbutz. So no reason why I should not have had a perfectly hideous day, but I didn't. I don't even feel all that schizoid. Looking at the pics really helped me, for 2 reasons I suppose. Firstly, it helped me see how he could look like, as a victim. I cannot stand not knowing. If I see the horrors, they will not eat me up, I will somehow be in control. Some of them looked very peaceful. Some were in bad shape, from being thrown about and, well, having been in the water for a while. But this has nothing to do with Uzi bcs he is alright. And if he isn't, he was probably crushed by the W [on the beach they were on it was much higher than 30 feet, in some places they reached 140 feet but i'm ok w that bcs I don't know what it means and there's no way in hell I'll fucking ever convert that into metres] before he could even have a lot of time to panic, and with little pain. Not to be gory or anything but a broken neck is faster than and preferable to drowning so. It will have been swift. My doctor friend says so and right now she is God. Secondly, I was finally able to FUCKING DO SOMETHING. I did something for my best friend, I looked for him. I did not want to find him, but I COULD look for him. I could do that much. Since I’m fucking helpless anyway, that helped tremendously. Also, when I was 18 and an exchange student in Germany, my friend Steffen killed himself. It haunted me for years that he threw himself in front of a train. It got better when I came across a picture of someone who’d died the same way. I suppose not knowing is worse for me than knowing, I will not be defeated by my imagination. I wouldn’t have wanted to see him, but I am glad I had the chance to see someone. I am also in vet school. There must be a connection here somewhere, regarding higher threshold for gore. I don’t know, I’m just grateful something eased it all. Again, whatever works. I have even desensitised myself to his pics. Well, the ones here anyway, am going nowhere near his letters, mails, photographs in my flat. Will in fact ask my friend to go through everyhting and put them away to make sure I don't come across them by accident. The one from the missing board, from the "Uzi sheli" post, I came across unexpectedly, a friend of mine sent me a link and I didn't know what it was. I was in Canada then and just started sobbing. A friend was with me and I can't imagine being in his place. As a matter of fact I HAVE been in his place and it sucks rock big time, what can you do to help? Not much really. He just grabbed his guitar, sat by the wall behind me and started playing and do you know, music does tame the beast [I've never thanked you for it but you did rescue me then. So, thank you so much, really.]

The ceremony was, in Lila's words, "a nightmare and very loving". I am very happy, exceedingly happy that I wasn't there. Yanniv's death and the following months are forever etched in my memory, and he was nowhere this close to me. He was not part of my tissues. I do not need that. I cannot imagine being there. At the same time, I cannot believe I wasn't there for it. [I didn't say I wasn't schizoid, I said I didn't feel schizoid, huge diff] I talked to his mum. She sounds like a zombie. I know my pain, cannot begin to imagine hers. I am actually now praying she won’t be home whenever I ring (too bloody often) so I don’t have to talk to her. Because there’s no conversation to be had really. Regarding grief, I fully know it doesn't matter what I do or try to do, it will catch up w me, it has its own timing and I cannot do a thing to control it. Again, all I can hope for is that I have a respite from it till exams are over. It would majorly piss me off if I flunked bcs he died.

Speaking of pissed off, I am also starting to be v annoyed w him. For preferring fucking Asia to Portugal. Could never stand Asia, don’t care how beautiful and heavenly (HA!) the fucking beaches are, who in their right mind goes to places w the death penalty??? Also, I didn’t need to have this space tainted. I didn’t need to lose my sense of humour, my sleep, my linking, my appetite, most of all my words, I don't KNOW myself when I'm not writing, it's like not breathing, I drown in all that fucking silence, and my wanting to read. I have bought 115 books. I have been home for 3 days and have not read a single one of them. Not one. Do you realise how abnormal that is? I DO NOT FEEL LIKE WRITING OR READING AND IT’S ALL HIS FAULT! I have 4 exams between the 24th and the 28th and then some, and have not been able to even contemplate opening a fucking book. I DO NOT NEED THIS! But more than that, how dare he be killed by a fucking tsunami??? Anything BUT that! He lived in Israel for fuck’s sake, couldn’t he have just died in a bombing? How hard would that be??? IT’S FUCKING ISRAEL, just pick your fucking corner! For this I sat on the ground w him outside our room and helped him clean his gun during miluim??? For this he survive the army? I told you before tsunamis are my one real phobia. Were a phobia, are now a very legitimate fear, as it turns out, and I don’t think people will mock me anymore. A movie came on while I was still on the kibbutz, called Tsunami or Tidal Wave or some other equally terrifying thing [with Tea Leoni, if you never watched it, DON’T]. I decided it might be a good idea to watch it as therapy. One big mistake it was. I was shuddering the whole time - and Uzi just made fun of me [which is funny in more than one way bcs we went to see The 6th Sense together and I was so happy he was so big (1,87, close to 6’2’’) bcs of the illusion of protection and we both screamed and jumped at the same time whenever the dead appeared and the bleeding idiot actually latched onto my arm during one scene, I ask you] At some point, by the end of the movie, you see 2 little figures ON A FUCKING BEACH, say the size of a pinky nail, and a huge wave abt the size of a very big hand approaching. That was too much for me and I literally fled shaking from the room (kibbutz rooms open right onto the outside). Well, Uzi made fun of me for days. Days. He added “tsunami” to his “eggs” repertoire and kept saying it at random moments, making me jump and flinch, bcs “you just look so cute”, the bloody asshole. He only stopped when I started hitting him and actually hurting him. He was full of bruises by the time I finished kicking his shins. So yes, very funny, downright hilarious, I am extremely appreciative of the fact that my worst fear comes true in the shape of my best friend being swallowed alive by I don’t know how many tonnes of water.

Also, I absolutely did not need to go from daily longing to be in Israel again to never wanting to set foot in that fucking country again. Oh I am half mad, yes. And apparently it’s a media frenzy, relatives on the telly, newspaper articles, people who never met him saying how beautiful he was, what the fuck??? This is Uzi we’re talking abt, not a fucking circus monkey, he wouldn’t like that AT ALL, this is the man who was a genius and refused to go to special classes bcs he didn’t want to stand out! He’d find the whole thing ridiculous and very disturbing. I am grateful I am at least spared that.

More so, and brace yourselves for some real weirdness but guess what, I don’t fucking care, I sometimes dream of things that then happen the exact way I dreamt them. I sometimes know things I cannot possibly know. I have the best antennae in the world and they have never let me down re people, not once. Just so you can properly freak out, I’ll let you know I've often dreamt of things I couldn't possibly know and yet I do. I cannot believe he could be dead and NOT FUCKING LET ME KNOW, what the hell is he thinking! And yes, I am serious, deal w it.

I am also not crying, which would be worrying me if I could be bothered to worry abt anything but guess again? Yes, I still don't fucking care.

Finally, to all of you who keep commenting and sending emails, I cannot promise I will answer them right away, I cannot promise I'll keep writing, I can only think this is turning into a blog i wouldn't want to read, or not often anyway bcs who needs all this, I wish I had a way to tell you how much you are helping me, I went on a thank-you rampage on the blogosphere today using pretty much the same words every time [my words ARE gone, I mean I still use them but they taste like dust], I cannot believe how much it helps, even from those I never heard from before, you seem to care about me and most importantly, you care so much about Uzi, whom you've never met [you've never met me either but you know what I mean], and he is SO worthy of you, if only you could have known, if only you truyly knew what an unbearable waste it all is if he is dead. I have no words other than Thank You to offer and they don't seem like much but truly, every comment heals some little bit even as another breaks away. I feel like you keep re-weaving me and preventing me from ending splattered all over the place, I don't even know how you do it, I just know that you unfailingly do. You do have my back and I will forever be grateful to all of you for it.