Cherish

I kept a few Emails Tal sent me over the years. Not enough, but at least I have a few. 


He sent me the following Email on February 18th 2002, in reply to my Email titled: "Travel journal, Friday, Day 6th (February 8th)" .
I was abroad for about a month then (Cuba & Italy) and sent an elaborate travel journal to my friends and family by lengthy Emails (didn't have a blog then...). 

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Hey, sis,

Having your travel tales unfold in front of me is amazing. I never knew you had this talent for writing... I guess it runs in the family. I think you should do something with it, honestly.

You also seem to have a talent for enjoying life... which means I keep smiling while reading your journal. I actually felt your sorrow and love when you and Lilah parted... every time I finish reading, I'm already looking forward to the next episode.

Now, especially, and of course, I want to hear about your dinner with the Royal family... the closest I ever came was having dinner at the Jumayel family home, in Lebanon, about 20 years ago (an interesting story... I can tell you about it next we meet, if you want).

Lots of love and kisses

Bro.

PS: I like having you for a sister.

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When in doubt, do the right thing




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Yesterday I was notified an article I wrote was accepted by a website and will be published online, for the first time. (My first article was published in a printed magazine. This is my second article in the total countdown, but the first to be published online). 


I spent the next few minutes jumping up and down in joy and excitement - and the following hours in tears, because I can't tell Tal about it, and I can't have his feedback on what I write and how I write it, and I can't have him being proud of me and happy for me. 

What a ship is

Yesterday I watched "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" in the cinema. 

What Jack Sparrow (Sorry - Captain Jack Sparrow) tells Elizabeth Swan made me think of Tal:

"...That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs - but what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom."

I reckon if it was written:
"...That's what a vehicle is. It's not just wheels and an engine and a fuel tank and an exhaust pipe, that's what a vehicle needs - but what a vehicle is... is freedom". 

Tal would agree. 

What do you think? I think it's a pretty good definition. 

לענה | Artemisia

מאז שטל נהרג מסתובב לי בראש המשפט הזה מ"שר הטבעות", בתרגומה של רות לבנית:


"אל תבחש בלענת כוסי…כלום איני טועם את מר טעמה לילה לילה וליבי מנבא לי שעוד לא מיציתי את קובעתה?" (דנתור מתפרץ בזעם על פאראמיר). 


כי ככה אני מרגישה: שאמנם מר לנו על היעדרו מהרגע הראשון, אבל אנחנו עוד לא קולטים עד כמה מותו השפיע, משפיע וישפיע עלינו - על כל כך הרבה אנשים, בכל כך הרבה אופנים, בכל כך הרבה רבדים. כמו רעל שמתפשט, כמו מרירות שמחלחלת, שאנחנו עוד רחוקים מלמצות את השפעתה, להבין אותה או להכיל אותה. 


ליל הסדר היה מזעזע, והמחשבה להיות שוב סביב שולחן בחג בלעדיו גורמת לי לרצות לברוח רחוק, מהר וביללות. 

Since Tal was killed, this quote from "Lord of the Rings" keeps popping up in my head: 

"Stir not the bitterness in the cup that I mixed for my self…have I not tasted it now many nights upon my tongue, foreboding that worse yet lay in the dregs?" (Denethor snaps at Faramir). 

Because this is how I feel: Although we feel the bitterness of his absence since the moment he was gone, we do not yet grasp the scope of influence his death has affected - on so many people, in so many ways, in so many layers. Like poison expanding, like bitterness spreading - we are far from exhausting, comprehending or containing its effect on us. 

The 'Seder' night was horrid, and thinking about spending another holiday eve around the table without him makes me want to run away, far and fast, howling. 

Sadness of the kind | עצב מסוג

Turns out the Inuit ("Eskimos") only have 12 different words for snow (unlike the urban legend that states they have a 100 different ways to describe snow) . 

I wonder how many words to describe sadness I will find out there are. 

So far there has been the numbing sadness, the excruciating sadness, the nauseating sadness I encountered in the hotel at breakfast in Rome and the unbearable sadness when I realized that in 18 years I will be 55 years old. Which means Tal and I will be at the same age. 

מסתבר שלאינואיטים ("אסקימואים") יש רק 12 מילים לשלג (בניגוד לאגדה האורבנית המספרת שיש להם 100 מילים לתיאור שלג). 

אני תוהה כמה אופנים לתיאור עצב אני אגלה שיש. 

עד כה היו העצב המשתק, העצב המענה, העצב מעורר הבחילה אותו חוויתי בארוחת הבוקר במלון ברומא והעצב הבלתי נסבל כשהבנתי שבעוד 18 שנה אהיה בת 55. מה שאומר שטל ואני נהיה באותו הגיל.   

תמונות המצבה - טל | Pics - Tal's headstone

שבירות בדרך | Heartbreaks on the way

סמס מנ., יום שישי, 18/3/11
"רציתי לצלצל לטלש לומר לו שאנחנו נכנסים ללידה."


סמס מבועז קורפל, יום שבת, 19/3/11
"היי ורד, אני מתחיל בשידור בעוד עשר דקות והלב שלי שבור" 

Email from R., Monday, March 28th 2011 

"I just got tickets to see Hugh Laurie playing live with his new blues band.

I was just about to phone Tal as soon as I got the confirmation for the tickets - not only he LOVED Hugh Laurie (Dr House) but House AND Blues..."

תמונות - טל ואני | Pics - Tal & I

Bruised eyes

I'm looking at the world through bruised eyes.

The images I have seen have imprinted themselves on my retina, are engraved in my iris, are outlined in my pupils, have impressed themselves into my cornea. 


I'm looking at the world through images of his death, his funeral, his coffin lowered into the ground, and these images have bruised me.

A veil of sadness covers my eyes and I'm looking at the world through it, as through a filter, and it affects my eyesight. 


My eyes have become the most vulnerable part of me, as my eyes were the gate through which these images have entered my realm and changed me, and my eyes now reflect my pain, my trauma, my vulnerability.

As I reread what I have just written, I realize it was not so: My ears were the first gate, not my eyes, as the news of his death was first delivered to me over the phone - by hearing, not by seeing. And yet it is my eyes who have been bruised, not my ears. Perhaps because a part of me fled when I heard the news, for I did not wish to be there and register what I was being told.

I notice strangers staring at me with a puzzled expression on their faces and I wonder - Do they interpret my expression as haunted? Do they notice the layer of sadness through which I'm looking at them? Do they see these images in my eyes when they look at me, or is it only me who see these images when I look at them? 


Can you see the bruises?

You ARE still my brother

This is the poem my beloved friend E., who lives abroad, sent me once she knew of my brother's death.
It conveys, quite accurately, what I would have liked to say.
For I believe and feel Tal is still my brother, and I remain his sister.

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other,

that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.

Speak to me in the easy way

which you always used.

Put no difference in your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without affect,

without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same that it ever was.

There is absolutely unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,

for an interval,

somewhere very near,

just around the corner.

All is well.

By Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)