Two years. 730 days. Feels like 12 seconds ago.
All the details, the memories, his facial expressions, his laugh, his goofiness with my kids, his hyper passion for Israel, it’s all so fresh in my brain.
Mind you, I can’t remember what happened yesterday but I do remember what happened on September 16th, 2018. My big brother, Ari was murdered.
There is always a lot of discussion about terrorism in the world, and especially in this region, but very little about the impact a terrorist attack has on the victim’s family.
Simply put, it broke me, and if I may speak on behalf of my family, in many ways it broke us all.
I am not going to get into the intricate details of how his murder affected me, but suffice to say, I am not the same Hillel I was two years and one day ago.
After it happened, I went straight back to work in a matter of weeks. Big, colossal mistake. I did not do therapy despite the state of Israel offering to subsidize my treatment, because I didn’t think I needed it. I didn’t believe in it. I believed in work, I believed in distraction. I believed in not thinking. Like I said, big mistake.
Now, in 2020, during this pandemic, guess what I have a lot of. That’s right, time, and time equals thoughts. It’s all coming back in spades.
What else can I say? Ari was a man who, above all, stood for one thing, truth. Often inconvenient, politically incorrect, sometimes even awkward, but he believed in the truth no matter what.
It is still hard for me to look at his face without getting supremely sad, and being how prolific he was, his face is everywhere. Lucky me.
Even though two years have passed, I cannot bring myself to watch the funeral but if you are interested, here it is. https://youtu.be/-yW7YqbgiwA
I cried. A lot. More than ever.
I have sadder and happier days, today is most definitely a trigger that brings me back to that Sunday morning when it all went down.
As many have said before me, my brother Ari lived a hero and died a hero.
I am told that this sadness will never go away completely, but time will heal and it will diminish in its intensity, something I await eagerly because this hurts. A lot.
I miss him.
