Who knows how much they
understand?'
By Tovah Lazaroff
JERUSALEM (March 26) - "Mommy and
Daddy, I'm writing you this letter to say
good-bye, because I am not going to see you for
a long time," Shoval Shemesh, 7, wrote to her
parents Gadi, 33, and Tzipi, 32, who were killed
last Thursday by a suicide bomber on King
George Avenue in Jerusalem.
She drew a large heart in black marker around her
name to the left of the note and colorful flowers
to the right.
Yesterday, Shoval's uncles showed her letter to
President Moshe Katsav, when he paid a
condolence call at her grandparents' house in
Pisgat Ze'ev.
Shoval and her sister Shahar, 3, played off to the
side, away from the crowd of cameramen and
reporters that filled the small living room lined
with paintings and a bookshelf of traditional
Jewish texts.
Bracha Shemesh, their grandmother, said with the
help of a psychologist they told the girls on
Friday before the funeral that their parents had
gone to heaven. The girls also saw the graves.
"They know, but who knows how much they
understand," Shemesh said. She said she herself
is having a hard time believing her son, a warrant
officer in the IDF, is gone.
"Now, the house is filled with people, it seems
like a dream. But when everyone is gone and the
house is quiet, than I will know he is missing,"
Shemesh said.
She said the moment she heard about the attack,
she worried about Gadi and Tzipi. She was
watching the girls while their parents went to
downtown Jerusalem for an ultrasound exam
because Tzipi was in her fifth month of
pregnancy.
Shemesh said she tried their cellphone. With each
unanswered call, her anxiety level grew. Her
daughter tried as well. Sensing the fear, Shoval
asked if her father was all right. Then there was a
knock on the door.
"I thought for a minute he [Gadi] had come back
and I calmed down, thinking he was fine,"
Shemesh said.
She said when she saw the soldiers outside her
home she said, "'Excuse me, I'm waiting for my
son.' Then I understood."
"It's not right that a man goes out to run errands
and never comes home," she added.
Only this week they discovered papers in a bag
the couple carried that reveal what Tzipi and Gadi
learned on Thursday, but never lived to tell -
Tzipi was carrying twins.
"Gadi was a good father, he would tell the girls
stories," Shemesh said.
Now that seven days of mourning are over, the
family will have to decide where the girls will live.
It's too early to know, Shemesh said.
Looming before them first is the question of how
to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Pessah.
She recalled how her son, Gadi, would take off
before Pessah to arrange everything for the
holiday. He would check carefully for bread
crumbs, the night before the holiday, she said.
"He organized everything - holidays and
birthdays," his older sister Yochi Israel said, as
she sat on floor cushions wrapped in a blanket
with a torn shirt, the traditional sign of mourning.
The oldest of eight children, she last saw her
younger brother at the bar mitzva of their nephew
the previous Sunday.
Looking puzzled, another sister said, "I almost
forgot about the bar mitzva, it seems so long
ago."
Israel said when she heard about the attack, her
brother was the last one she worried about.
It's the third time since January that terrorism has
touched their lives, she said. She and her
daughter, Meirav, an 11th grader in Evelina de
Rothschild High School, were downtown when a
terrorist shot at pedestrians on Jaffa Road. They
quickly lay down on the ground.
"I saw death in front of me," Israel said.
Meirav Israel said she was on Egged bus No. 22
last Sunday when a suicide bomber blew himself
up in front of it near an intersection in the French
Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem. More than two
dozen passengers were lightly wounded.
She said she saw everything, including the
remains of the bomber. "I was in shock. I didn't
want to go to the hospital. I wanted to go home
to tell my mother I was all right," Meirav said.
She boarded another bus to go home. The next
morning, she again boarded a bus to go to
school, even though she was scared.
Although Meirav said she no longer hangs out
with friends in public places, she continues to go
to school. Her mother said life in Jerusalem these
days "is like a game of Russian roulette, you
never know where something is going to
happen."
Meirav said she plans to enter the army next year,
"and I plan to serve with pride to defend my
country." |
