It has been quite a while since I shared a personal post here. My regular
readers will remember that on
21st May 2022
we lost our youngest son Gadi to suicide. We recently marked three years since
his passing and I felt that I was not being true to myself if I did not
mention it on my blog. It has been three very tough years of questions,
waiting, imploring and, most of all, missing Gadi. Through a lawyer we have
learnt many details that we were not told about at the beginning, but these
details have only led to more questions. I do not believe that we will ever
truly know what happened to my beloved son the night he died - the authorities
concerned are banding together to keep us at bay - but we know who to blame
and who ultimately caused Gadi to believe that life was no longer worth
living.
At the end of May we marked the three years since Gadi's passing with a
memorial evening and then a morning service at the military cemetery where he
is buried. These are my words from that day.
Three years.
Gadi, it is impossible to believe that three years have
passed since we lost you. Each evening, when I go out for a walk, I think about
the words I want to say to you. I have so much to say and I plan it all in my
head, but when it comes to writing it all down, the pain is too much to bear. I
want to speak with you face to face. I want to reminisce with you and laugh
about the crazy things you used to get up to. And yes, I guess I even miss the
times when I yelled at you for losing all your things or forgot to do something
important.
I don’t want to keep writing about you in the past tense.
I want you to still be here, by this stage having finished your military service
and probably off travelling in some obscure part of the world, exploring the
places that you always dreamed of. I want to see photos of you in gorgeous
settings and to enjoy the sketches you would most probably have made.
But
that is not to be because three years ago, in May 2022, the world turned against
you.
Three years.
The length of time it took to construct
the Eiffel Tower and the core structure of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Three
years. The time it took Charles Darwin to conduct fieldwork in South America,
which laid the foundation for his theory of evolution.
The Watergate
Scandal, the political scandal involving U.S. President Richard Nixon, unfolded
over roughly three years.
Michelangelo completed the most intense
painting work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in about three years, and
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the bulk of The Lord of the Rings manuscript over
approximately three years.
But in three years we have failed to
learn, really learn about what happened to you the night you decided that life
was no longer worth living. The police don’t want to talk to us or answer our
many questions. The army don’t want to help, and it took so long to receive the
report about your death – a report that told us next to nothing – that by the
time we had received it, along with the additional materials,
Harvot Barzel
had begun and the story of your death was old.
It is hard to believe
you died before this terrible war. That’s you don't know about the
hatufim** or the many people who were killed, including your school
friend
Ariel
and your best friend from the army,
Yakir. Though perhaps you do know. Maybe you are all hanging out together,
discussing what is going on down here and keeping each other company. I like to
think so.
Not long ago we learned that Yakir named his car Steve.
Steve. The name that you, Gadi, used for everything. When you and Nadav were
young we all used to love watching
‘Walk On The Wild Side’
clips together. For those of you who have not yet discovered the clips, ‘Walk On
The Wild Side’ was a British comedy sketch show shown on BBC One. It involved
the overdubbing of voiceovers to natural history footage, to give the appearance
of the animals doing the talking. You, Gadi, were particularly enamoured with
the talking marmots named
Steve and Alan. Many characters in the delightful stories you then wrote were henceforth
named Steve. I have convinced myself that Yakir, a US-born young man who became
completely Israeli and refused to speak English even with us, named his car
Steve because you once suggested he do so.
Gadi, you were such a
talented young man. Using the words you once used to describe yourself, you were
“messy, artistic and funny”. I still have so much to say about you, but telling
your story called “My Pet Puffin”, a story about a Puffin called, yes you
guessed it, Steve, seems like a good way to share just one of your many
talents.
“I wish I had a pet puffin. If I did I would call it Steven
(only because I like the name) and I would call him Steve for short. During the
day Steve could waddle round the house with us, and during the night he could
sleep in the bath that we never use full of warm water (because he comes from
the Atlantic and the Atlantic has mostly warm water.) I would fill the bath with
small rocks and pebbles, and I would build a sort of artificial stone ledge for
him to perch on. I would pour a salt container into the water, and put a few
fish in the bath in case he wanted a snack in the middle of the night. During
the day I would feed him an assortment of herring, tuna and whatever other fish
we could find in the fridge. Sometimes I would play a recording of other puffins
to him so he would feel at home. Maybe I would get a female puffin as well. I
would call her Stevette.”
Gadi, you wished for a pet puffin. I wish
for a lot of things.
I wish you had never discovered weed, whether it
was at school or at youth club, it was certainly not something you learnt about
at home.
I wish that the Modi’in police had not been aggressive and
mean, and had instead seen you as a young, tired soldier who just needed to be
sent home.
I wish you had woken Dad.
I wish that the army
had been more proactive and helped you that night, and I wish that they would
listen to what we have to say now.
I wish that the lawyer that you
called at midnight had answered her phone.
I wish that the guy you
spoke with at ERAN, Israel's emotional first aid service, had been more
prepared.
I wish that the young girl who answered the Israeli police
emergency phone line that night knew what ERAN was and had done her job
correctly.
I wish that the friends that you reached out to had
understood your despair.
But most of all, Gadi, I wish you were still
here. I miss you so much.
Despite the lack of cooperation from the authorities involved, we were
recently successful in getting Gadi's story onto the front page on a
national newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. Though it will not bring Gadi back, it
is important to us that the public know his story, about the dreadful lack
of care that was shown to him the night he died, and about all the mistakes
that were made.
This is the link for those of you who are interested in reading the full
article in English.
* Yahrzeit is a
Yiddish word
meaning anniversary of a death. It is the yearly anniversary of a loved one's
death (traditionally the anniversary of the Hebrew date, not the Gregorian
date). Jewish people observe yahrzeit at home by lighting a special long-burning
candle in memory of the deceased.
** Hatufim is the Hebrew word for hostages and, in this case, refers to
the 55 men and women still being held in captivity in Gaza. 33 are believed to
be deceased, 20 are believed to be alive and 2 unknown.
.png)
_reduced.jpg)
