Yahrzeit

My friend V. is amazing and is arranging things so we can have a Yahrzeit ceremony for Uzi at our synagogue. That is actually what I needed but I couldn’t bear to do it myself. The media references have started so no more radio for me while driving - no more much of anything related really till this is all over. Thank you all who’ve been writing and commenting to say you’re thinking of us now, it’s lovely to hear. I know Uzi won’t be forgotten but it’s lovely to hear how much you’ve made him yours as well. I’ve finally written something for his memorial next Friday:

In the very beginning of our relationship my boyfriend won me over completely when he told me I want you to know you can always talk to me abt Uzi, I understand and I'd never be jealous. And only you could make me start writing something for an ex-boyfriend by quoting the current one, you two'd get along so brilliantly - though what I remember most abt you and I is that you still are my best friend. Today, maybe as Lila stands here reading this, we will be lighting a Yahrzeit candle for you at our synagogue. I don’t know what happens after death so I’ve decided you are sitting outside with Yaniv, laughing, drinking beer, greeting passersby with “alan”. I am so sorry that I never found you among the pictures of the victims, I would have liked to help bring you home sooner, that much I could have done. Some people were horrified that I could look at them for a week, others were surprised I flew to Israel for 4 days only to be at your funeral. Some people, apparently, have never had someone like you in their lives. Haval. I would do anything for you in life, how could I not say goodbye to you in person? This past year has been absolutely horrendous and I very often still don’t know what to do with myself. I still sometimes dream I am underwater saving lives. It’s usually gorillas I save, for some reason. Or at least I recover their bodies so they can be returned to their families. (I know you would find this gorilla obsession hysterically funny. Actually, I hope you were around when Lila, Zohar and I made all those terribly morbid jokes, you’d love them. God I miss your inappropriate sense of humour.) But see, I may not know what happens after death but I know what happens after your death. I promised a year ago that I will have as good a life as I possibly can, not only bcs you would hate it if your death broke us, but bcs this is my way of thanking Life, The Universe and Everything for having given me you. I still think that your being dead is obscene and we shouldn’t be standing here, the earth should stand still and the sky should turn black and dragons should come screaming to wage war against all worlds bcs you cannot be dead. So I think about you, I miss you, I am sad every day, but every day I am more grateful than sad. How could I not be?

I used to have a cat that I brought w me from Eilat. He’d been very ill, lost an eye, had a broken pelvis. He loved to chase butterflies on the lawn. He was killed by 2 kibbutz dogs and after that, whenever we saw a butterfly we decided it was his way of saying “hallo”. A few months ago I had a particularly bad day and didn’t see how I would survive any of this with my sanity intact. I asked you to please find a way to let me know that you were all right, that you weren’t too sad you were dead, that you weren’t too worried abt us. I barely slept and when I got up, very early in the morning, I went into the living-room and found a huge yellow butterfly trapped between the window and the netting. Just like that. There was no way really it could have got there but there it was, and it was absolutely perfect, like a headbutting from a silky cat. I have a place where I write things and people can comment. I have been obsessively writing abt you, and people from all over the world have prayed for your life and think of you now when they see butterflies. They even send me reports and pictures from their gardens. Recently someone who never met you (or me) wrote something amazing, something which encapsulates it brilliantly, something I know many of them feel: Everyone who reads you misses Uzi. And this too is absolutely perfect, the sort of beautiful only you could inspire. You are remembered.

You are still my Tig, I am still Pip, only the rules have changed a bit.

[This still reminds me of him and forever will, 2nd link in this post. And Lamb's Angel Gabriel.]