A few months after my son Amichai Oster fell in Gaza while serving as a reservist in the IDF, we received a message from the grave. It did not come from Amichai; rather, it came in the form of a message written to my father, who was sitting in a DP camp in Italy after surviving the Holocaust, from his friend who was leaving the camp to travel to what would become the State of Israel.
The message was written on the back of a black and white photo of the two young men, who looked a lot better than they must have when they first arrived in the camp. It came in a bunch of old photos from Europe and the DP camp gifted to me by an aunt and cousin.
"To my dear and forever friend Mordechai Spiegel on our parting," the letter said, "I am leaving you now but I hope to meet you again in the Land of Israel, and we will work together to do good." It is dated July 2, 1946.
I know that after the Holocaust, my father had wanted to go to Israel but that he did not want to be separated again from his two siblings, who both survived the Holocaust, and instead went with them to Cleveland, where they had a relative willing to sponsor them. He did not talk to me or anyone else about what his life was like before he married my mother so that is about all I know.
So I didn't know just how important it was to him, and this photo was another clue to that and to the certainty that I had closed a circle when I made Aliyah with my husband and our children nearly 25 years ago.
Amichai was one year old when we came to Israel, and when he returned to Israel from his post-army traveling to serve his country after the start of the war in Gaza, he also set my mind at ease. When I told him that I felt guilty that he had to fight in a war and that he had no choice because we brought him to Israel knowing that he would have to serve, he replied: "Ima (Mom), what makes you think that if we had not made Aliyah that I would not be here fighting for my country?"
This has eased my mind greatly in the year since he was killed by a bomb that exploded in the hidden opening of a tunnel shaft while working to clear a security buffer zone less than a kilometer from the border to help protect the Gaza border communities and all of us from more terrorists in the Strip.
Amichai was the first soldier to fall in 2024, on January 1, and hundreds have been killed since then in a war that appears to be coming to an end, at least for now. On Monday, we are marking his yartzheit, his date of death according to the Jewish calendar.
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It has been a year of tears, a year of pain, a year of smachot, a year of laughter. It has been a literal rollercoaster of peaks and valleys, highs and lows.
We have spent a year of firsts – the first holidays without him, his first birthday where he does not actually age, our first Memorial Day, our first October 7– and his yartzheit and memorial ceremony will be our last first.
It has felt like the longest year – especially with the war continuing and the number of fallen soldiers increasing, and like the shortest year in that I cannot believe that it has been an entire year since he was killed. And also because what I do all day is work in the news, and the war is almost always the biggest news of the day.
For the longest time, I still expected him to burst through the door with a "Hello Ima," drop his backpack full of dirty uniforms and underwear on the floor and throw himself on his favorite couch with his favorite blanket to nap, catch up on WhatsApp messages with his friends and watch Netflix.
During this last year, we have heard from people around the country and around the world who crossed paths with Amichai during his 24 years, many who met him in just the last few months and years, including his reserve unit. We heard stories about him that we never heard before, all wonderful, and none that surprised us. We have received photos and videos in which he is so joyful and alive; many of them made us happy, they made us laugh, and they made us cry.
There are 10 baby boys named for him and a special young man who returned to religious observance took on his name. These have brought us so much comfort.
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Amichai with his family on the day he returned home from his post-army trip to join the reserves after Oct. 7, 2023
I really wish we could have seen how he would have turned out. What career path he would ultimately have chosen; the woman he would have married; the children he would have had. The good he would have done in the world.
This is our loss, it is the country's loss, it is the world’s loss.
I cannot mark this first horrible year without noting the kindness of friends, the army, his fellow soldiers and strangers who have reached out to us with messages of strength and love. We have received love and care and sympathy and prayers and cakes and challahs and donations for the park that we are building in Amichai's memory from strangers and friends and family from around the world, from throughout the country and our own special community of Karnei Shomron.
May we all know no more sorrow, may all our soldiers stay safe and recover in both body and soul, and may our hostages all return.
- Marcy Oster is a Ynetnews editor.