His Brother

Z. came to me a while ago when I was crying, while we were gathered outside waiting for the ambulance to bring his body, so we could finally bury him. Z. held me and said: I come for you instead of him now because he would want to, he would come for you if he could.

The most perfect, beautiful thing I was ever told.

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He is so much like Uzi it's both painful and comforting. He is even taller (1,92) and yesterday he leaned against the kitchen counter w the same half slouch and my heart skipped a beat. I can't quite get over how big he's become, how grown up, how attentive. Uzi was always so proud of him, so fiercefully protective of his little brother. He even liked it that Z. was now 5 cm taller - and still growing. I used to call him Handsome bcs he was and bcs it was fun to embarrass him. In the beginning I liked him bcs he was Uzi's brother and a cute kid, then I liked him also bcs he was likeable. He has always had the best, most appalingly dark sense of humour, which I love. Sometimes Uzi would come back to the room still laughing and say "Z. is SO funny, you'll never guess what he said now!" And he'd laugh and laugh, making me laugh as well even before I heard the story. I knew Z. resented me a bit, I took space in his brother's life, also physical space and it always astonished me that he'd come to the room at all. I used to tell Uzi, the Big Procrastinator, that he should make sure to drive somewhere w Z., and Z. often kept him company on the nights it was his turn to guard the kibbutz. Bcs see, even if I left the room for a while, I knew he'd never really relax bcs I would come back, inevitably. In a car they'd be alone for hours, roaming the kibbutz. U. always came back with a little extra happiness over this time together. He was crazy abt Z. and would have done anything for him, anything. And I always felt grateful that they were brothers AND friends. It breaks my heart that he lost the continuation of himself this way. We talked for hours, he helped me find my love letters to Uzi. (Funny thing: I was able to find them bcs years ago I gave Uzi, The Lazy, one of those filing binders so he could keep all his important documents together and not rummage frantically through every little box cursing in Arabic looking for them every time he needed something. They were there, w the flight stub from his 1st trip to Portugal. I had forgotten all abt giving him the binder until I recognised my handwriting on the outside pouch.) And for the first time I thought maybe we can have a relationship not only BECAUSE OF Uzi, bcs we need to re-visit each other's memories, but also DESPITE him.

Because Handsome, kol hakavod, you've turned into one hell of a man.