Birthday for the bereaved by Sherri Lederman Mandell
Hadassah, September 2001
The death of a child brings almost indescribable pain, but commemorating
that child's life can yield a bittersweet acceptance.
You may have heard of my son Koby. He and his friend Yosef were brutally
murdered half a mile from our home in Tekoa. On May 8, he was bludgeoned
to death in a cave.
An innocent eighth grader, he was killed because of hate. He and Yosef had cut school to go hiking in the wadi, the dry riverbed. They wanted to know it like the backs of their hands, his friends told us during the shiva.
June 14 would have been Koby's fourteenth birthday. On that day I was in terrible pain. How do you celebrate the birthday of your eldest child, who is no longer with you? How do you mark the day that would have brought him closer to high school and college, to manhood and marriage, to having children?
How do you mark the day that reminds you that your son is no longer alive?
That morning my three children-Daniel, 12, Eliana, 10, and Gavi, 6-and I did errands in Jerusalem. Then we decided to go to Burger King to mark Koby's birthday because one thing he loved about Israel was being able to eat kosher hamburgers at Burger King.
My son loved to eat-especially hamburgers. On our home computer screensaver, he wrote: "I'm hungry, give me something to eat now!!!" His hunger was a force to be reckoned with.
We needed to walk about five blocks to get to Burger King. We were very hungry and tired and cranky so when we luckily passed a vegetarian restaurant, we decided to stop there. I think we were all relieved not to have to feel the sadness of eating hamburgers without Koby.
As we ate, I cried and cried. I miss him so much-the way he hugged me at night, the way he dropped his backpack on the living room floor when he walked in, even the way he kept his room a total disaster zone. I miss the way he read each article I wrote and commented on it. I miss the jokes he made sure to tell me every day.
I miss my previous life, where pain wasn't my constant companion, where
horror wasn't the undertone of my dreams.
I closed my eyes and held a napkin against them as I cried and thought:
How am I going to go on? How will I get the strength to leave this restaurant
and get through the day?
And suddenly I remembered that on my birthday I like to swim a mile. What could I do on Koby's birthday? Swim 14 laps? We were in downtown Jerusalem; Koby would have been 14. I said to my kids: "Let's go give charity in Koby's name to 14 beggars."
At that instant, a gentleman with a clean-shaven face and puffy white hair put a card down on our table. With a glance, I knew the card said that the man was deaf and looking for a contribution.
In the past, cards like that had annoyed me-I was trying to eat a meal
in peace and some beggar was interrupting me.
Now my kids and I were thrilled to see him. "Here," we said,
"here's money." He looked at us with a grin on his face.
We got change and left the restaurant, energized by our mission. But it
was very hot, and there were few people in the downtown area because of
fear of terrorism.
We saw someone giving charity to a stooped old man. The old man walked away and we ran after him to add our contribution. We actually went up to two people who had broken legs and were resting on a bench. We strode purposefully up to them and stopped short when we didn't see a cup or change basket.
Up in heaven, I thought, Koby was laughing at our escapades. There was nothing he loved more than irony and this was supreme irony: We needed beggars because we were desperate for someone to give to. We were begging for beggars. And just when we needed them, there weren't any.
It was too hot to stay out much longer. We thought about visiting the Kotel, where there is usually a large group of beggars, but it was the middle of the afternoon and the heat convinced us to call it a day. So we decided that next year on Koby's birthday, we would get up early, go downtown and to the Kotel and make sure to give money in Koby's name.
When I later told my husband about the 14 beggars, he said, "Next year, we'll gather the beggars and take them out to a restaurant for a meal."
What do you do with tragedy and pain? Either you become bitter, hardened
and despondent, or you go forward and try to bring beauty and joy to the
world. Koby would want us to create joy in his name. Koby would rejoice
to sit at a table with the beggars.
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Sherri Lederman Mandell is the author of Writers of the Holocaust (Facts
on File). She made aliya five years ago and now lives in Tekoa.
Originally Published by Hadassah Magazine September 2001.
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