Mother's Letter
to
her little girl

Noam my little girl...
Ten months have passed, my daughter...the moments of the horrible terror attack, we have been trying to repress and to forget. We want to remember only what was before...the life that was before...

Your giggling laughter and lack of inhibitions...your mischievous deeds...speeding on your bicycle, the "quarrels" with your siblings...and you always called Abba, who was in the middle of a meeting, to update him on exactly what happened...
I can see you playing in a bathtub full of bubbles and toys with little Shira, the two of you singing and laughing...

I can see you leaning over the table, papers and crayons around you and you writing notes to each of us, exactly as you did that morning...
I remember on winter days how you would come home soaked through to your bones, and calls from school to say that "Noam went outside again to dance in the rain without a jacket or an umbrella..."

Good night kisses, and questions of a little girl before going to sleep - something that Abba always did.

Today, I pass by your room and miss hearing the sound of your deep breathing...
miss patting your silky hair...miss your little hugs...miss feeling your little hand in my hand...
If I only close my eyes I feel you, your feather weight, sitting on my knees...and at one twenty in the afternoon I still hear your squeaky voice rise above the voices of the other children, and the sound of you dragging your school bag home as you return home from another day at school, my little girl who will remain in second grade forever.
There are songs that are difficult to hear, because I remember the song that you loved...and the song you sang...

And my throat constricts and the tears rise...but I cannot fall apart! We have to be strong for the children.

We have to continue, yes, we know that we have to, but nobody prepared us how? how?
Strong on the outside and so broken inside, always with a mask on our faces and everyone saying to me: "That's great! What a strong woman!" If they only knew...
We are trying to return the house to a routine, a "routine" of psychological treatments and support groups, a routine of treatments for Shira whose life she owes only to you, because you saved her...with your body.

And she...you surely know, is still recovering and this week will have another operation on her hand.

Everything changed so quickly, and at times I stop and ask: Maybe this is only a bad dream? How can this have happened to us? We were so careful, we didn't travel to the territories and we didn't ride the buses or go out to crowded places?
How did we become bereaved parents? A bereaved family? Being a Bereaved family is something that belongs to parents of brave soldiers, not parents of a seven year old girl.
Now a new life is going to enter our lives any day, and they say a new baby will bring happiness and comfort...and I only think: how happy you would be about the new baby, you would have appointed yourself the head helper, babysitter, sing and calm...
And what comfort are people talking about? Why don't they understand that the emptiness you left cannot be filled.

When you came into the world you added to our happiness that grew with the years and now when you passed on and left us...you left a hole, a wound in our hearts that will never heal. And time does not dull the pain, time doesn't heal, and we will live with your memory always, forever...
I can imagine us seventy years old or eighty with glasses and canes looking at you in the photo albums and films...and remembering how many years ago...
I know that you are with us, you see and hear and know what is happening with each of us, my little girl in heaven, if I could only ask for one more hug, a strong hug and a kiss...and that's all.

Ema (mother)

This translation was sent to us by Galit, Noam's mother