Grief warriors

My 13-year-old son Koby and his friend Yosef Ish Ran were murdered by terrorists on May 8, 2001. It’s the yahrtzeit this week.

A silver anniversary. Silver for? No gifts here.

I’m a veteran, a vatika, whose been through it.

But I’m still going through it.

My son’s murder.

You would think that after 25 years the pain would end. After all it’s half a jubilee, or, if you are a monarch or a pope, a full jubilee.

But this time of year, I feel like I’m standing in a vat of concrete.

I’m stuck. I can breathe, but that’s about it.

I’m not saying that it doesn’t get better. Because it does.

But there’s always more to mourn when you lose a child. First the 13-year-old boy who never got to grow up. Then the pain of your own family. The pain of your husband and children.

The pain of his friends, the pain of seeing his friends.

Then the graduation, the army, the college years, the wife he never married, the work he never did, the children he never had.

To anyone who is bereaved of a child: Don’t worry. You will never forget.

The pain will be there until the day you die.

Because the pain tells you that, yes, you loved this person. Who was part of you. But not.

And that part of you never stops longing for what was.

Never stops looking for its missing piece.

Never says that’s it. I’m over it.

Although I have said it. And meant it.

But grief is like a mutt that keeps barking and won’t leave your yard. Eventually, you have to invite him in.

Because you have to feel the loss.

You have to remember.

You have to know how hard you’ve been hurt.

And then I think of this country, smothered in grief. There are so many grief zombies walking around. Thousands of us.

We’re a tribe of our own — the bereaved. The heartbroken. Those who wander this land, trying to be whole.

Many of us do transcend our pain. We transform pain into power. We become grief warriors. We do small and great things in memory of our children.

But we are never whole again.

Reader, I don’t want your pity. I just want you to understand that this country is made of people who are missing parts of themselves. That doesn’t mean that we’re not happy. We grab on to any happiness like a rope that will save us from falling into the abyss.

Still we’re lacking. We’re needy. We’re yearning.

We need you to acknowledge our pain.

We need you to witness our story.

We need you to remember with us.