By Susi

Dearest Tsiki,

Sometimes I wish your phone number still worked. That there was a phone line to wherever you are so I could just tell you all the things that have happened in the last two years. Last night, I sat on the couch with a friend of mine- a girl I went to ulpan with. We sat back and grinned at all our friends laughing and drinking around us. These people, although i've only had a short time with them- well, we have a certain past together. We all came to Israel, went to Ulpan together- and made a home here. Israel is such a different place to me than before, i've laughed and cried and cried and cried and giggled and laughed.

Growing up- we always want the life experiences that define us to be beautiful ones. The graduating from Uni, the traveling the world, the Peace Corps and the weddings and babies. Little sprinkles of Tinkerbell's. We never anticipate the scary things.

Like losing You.

I wanted to tell you that I am going to the Rabbinical Court on Monday and I am scared. I also know that if they decide that I am not ready, i've lost nothing. Nothing in my life will change. I will still learn twice a week. I will still keep the Hag'im, I will still keep Kashrut and Shabbat as best I can and I will still love Judaism and Israel and learn to find myself in this craziness we call life.

Your death will not define me, but it has changed me. I've lived in such a higher level since two years ago and often it's become confusing, crushing, romantic, insane- but each and every moment I've lived, i've understood life in a different way. Even in your absence, your essence has been my aura, you're goodness- your purity. You're an angel to me, my best friend and my pain.

Yom Zikkaron is only days away. The air has a sense of silence about it on this day. This is my 3rd Yom Zikkaron in Israel and i'll always feel lonely on that day. It's filled with memorials and documentaries of other young men that have fallen. Pictures of them in their green uniforms are everywhere and my heart has a scar with your emblem on it. The comforting thing is: the nation remembers you and the other boys. Their tears fall for the family you were never able to have and the lives that were cut too short.

These wars, politicians..politics- cultural misunderstanding, religion- it all brews here in the middl east and it's so senseless to me. It's senseless because everyone deserves to go to school, have love, have many babies, gardens and more than one pair of shoes. Everyone deserves to call their mothers at night and tell them they love them and to go to the beach with their friends and to simply be.

I'll be thinking of you as I always do, I hope you're thinking of us.

xxx

Always,

susi