Jonathan Harel
My brother, Yuval (10.6.1958-7.7.1997)
Life does not go on
(A late realization from Memorial Day)
It is not true that life goes on. People keep saying it like it's true, but it's not. When someone dies on you, your life, as you knew it, ends. Your family is still yours, but it's different. Your parents are different; the order in which you are seated around the dinner table is different, the way you remember that trip to Greece, with the funny photo album that turned into a memorial album.
It is not true that life goes on. People ask you a simple question like "how are you?", and you know they mean to say "we know" or "we're here for you". Whenever you are sad everyone is there to cheer you up and there is no way to tell them that you don't want a support group, but rather to be left alone for an hour under the blanket.
It is not true that life goes on. Even you are no longer the way you were. You are the one who has lost someone. When you see "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" on TV you remember only with whom you saw it first, back then, at the old Esther Movie Theatre, that has since been brought down. When you laugh, they say that you overcame. If you go away for more than two weeks they say you ran away.
It is not true that life goes on. Even your past is re-edited, every time you tell that story of how you took the bus to Bloomfield Stadium to see the derby, you contemplate if you want to call him "my brother", or "my late brother", or "my brother may he rest in peace". Sometimes you just take him out of the story completely, to avoid the embarrassment from everyone. Every so often you meet someone who's been abroad for a long time, and when he asks how "he" is doing, you answer that he is no longer with us, and of course, in the end you need to comfort him and say that life goes on. But it doesn't.
It is not true that life goes on. It stops, and starts all over again. Differently.
(Originally written for the Memorial Day ceremony at Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv 24.4.2001)
I've taken the liberty to translate this passage written by Yair Lapid several years ago.
He said it better then I ever could... I hope he wouldn't mind.
My brother, Yuval (10.6.1958-7.7.1997)
Life does not go on
(A late realization from Memorial Day)
It is not true that life goes on. People keep saying it like it's true, but it's not. When someone dies on you, your life, as you knew it, ends. Your family is still yours, but it's different. Your parents are different; the order in which you are seated around the dinner table is different, the way you remember that trip to Greece, with the funny photo album that turned into a memorial album.
It is not true that life goes on. People ask you a simple question like "how are you?", and you know they mean to say "we know" or "we're here for you". Whenever you are sad everyone is there to cheer you up and there is no way to tell them that you don't want a support group, but rather to be left alone for an hour under the blanket.
It is not true that life goes on. Even you are no longer the way you were. You are the one who has lost someone. When you see "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" on TV you remember only with whom you saw it first, back then, at the old Esther Movie Theatre, that has since been brought down. When you laugh, they say that you overcame. If you go away for more than two weeks they say you ran away.
It is not true that life goes on. Even your past is re-edited, every time you tell that story of how you took the bus to Bloomfield Stadium to see the derby, you contemplate if you want to call him "my brother", or "my late brother", or "my brother may he rest in peace". Sometimes you just take him out of the story completely, to avoid the embarrassment from everyone. Every so often you meet someone who's been abroad for a long time, and when he asks how "he" is doing, you answer that he is no longer with us, and of course, in the end you need to comfort him and say that life goes on. But it doesn't.
It is not true that life goes on. It stops, and starts all over again. Differently.
(Originally written for the Memorial Day ceremony at Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv 24.4.2001)
I've taken the liberty to translate this passage written by Yair Lapid several years ago.
He said it better then I ever could... I hope he wouldn't mind.