Karnit Goldwasser
Photo: Eldad Refaeli
I miss you, always
Op-ed: Karnit Goldwasser says time taught her much, but will not be healing her wounds
It’s sad. Sad and painful.
I see how it starts, a week before Memorial Day, after Holocaust Remembrance Day ends. I see how the air changes and the colors turn grim; I see the country withdrawing into its pain; into its bloody history.
As to myself, I have been sad since the moment we bid farewell to each other. And that happened almost five years ago, in July 2006.
His story is yet another standard story about an almost 31-year-old guy who left his family, his wife, his studies and his job and went to safeguard the homeland. People like him are referred to as “salt of the earth.” And he didn’t return from his last mission, the one that took place near his home.
Udi managed to return to his homeland after two difficult years. He was returned in order to be buried in the place where he was born, grew up and got married. He was my man. He still is. Upon his burial, the counting of a new time started. A different life got underway.
They say time heals the wounds and that it’s the best cure for pain. For me, it’s different. Time taught me how to live with the pain and sorrow; how to laugh, be happy, get excited and revitalize along with it. How not to fear it. Time allows me to learn how to live with the wounds created upon his departure. For me they will never heal. A scar that will never heal shall remain in my heart. Time also taught me how, sometimes, it is possible to give in to the pain and sadness created within me.
I discovered that I am not sadder on Memorial Day compared to other days of the year. The intensity of the sorrow and pain that were entrenched in me the moment I saw his coffin returning do not change on the national mourning day.
However, on such day, where the sadness envelops us all, I feel that there is nothing or no one to shift my thoughts away from the pain. There is nobody to help me come out of the heartbreak. On this day, even the people closest to me cannot divert my thoughts elsewhere, because they too deal with the vacuum left upon his departure.
Had it been possible to go back in time, I could have said goodbye properly or maybe not say goodbye at all.
On Memorial Day, the whole country stops and remembers its sons and daughters; the ones whom we, the bereaved families, remember every day, every hour. We miss them always, just like we do every day.
When Independence Day starts, and the flags are again raised to full staff, happiness returns to the streets, and to me as well. Only I’m left with a crack.
