"We learned about the murder exactly on September 1, and it will forever be an emotionally conflicted day. Right after I drop them off at school, I will go to his grave. These are very tough days,” Michal Lubanov shared.
September 1 is usually filled with excitement as children begin new school years. For Michal, however, the day is also one of searing pain. On that exact date, a year ago, she learned that her husband, Alex Lubanov — kidnapped to Gaza on October 7 — had been murdered in captivity along with five other hostages.
Since then, she has tried to shoulder her new life, balancing between daycare, kindergarten and the cemetery. “A year has passed, and I cope as best I can. Tom, who is four, is starting preschool, and little Kai, who was born while Alex was in captivity, is going into daycare. It should be a joyful moment, but their father isn’t here with them.”
Kai, only a year and a half old, knows who his father is mostly through photos. “He sees a picture of Alex and shouts ‘Daddy, Daddy,’” Michal said. “But he was born into a reality where there is no father, only a mother. His very first word was ‘Daddy.’ I say to him, ‘Mommy,’ and he replies, ‘Daddy.’ That’s OK — he has a father. He’s not here, but he has a father.”
The pain sharpens with every milestone in raising her sons. “Time doesn’t help — it gets harder. Seeing the boys grow up without him, their first steps, their first words, it’s hell. Tom doesn’t talk much about Alex; it seems he’s repressing. He knows his father is in heaven. Sometimes he points up and says, ‘Mommy, Daddy’s in heaven.’ Once on a flight he asked, ‘Mommy, I’m in the sky — why don’t I see Daddy?’”
Michal admits her strength comes solely from her children: “I wake up for them, I go to sleep for them, I breathe for them. I try to take care of myself so I can be a strong mother. I think there are powers reserved only for a mother. A widowed mother wears the strongest Superman cape there is.”
Michal and Alex met as teenagers, sharing a decade-long relationship. “He was my teenage love. A very good man. If he saw the children, he would be the happiest man alive. For him, they were his victory. For me too. I know if he could tell me something, even for five seconds, he would say: ‘Take care of the kids, be strong, move forward. Live, laugh, be happy, love.’”
She speaks cautiously about the future. “I can’t imagine loving someone else. My heart is locked. I hope one day it opens, and that Alex himself will send me someone — only him. I hope one day I’ll be happy. Until then, I’ll give everything to raise the boys to be joyful and decent people, like their father was.”
She connects her personal grief to the broader national reality. “It’s sad that a year has passed since the murder and we’ve learned nothing as a country. Our brothers, our own flesh and blood, are still in captivity. We didn’t save those we could save. It’s a continuous nightmare.”