Smadar Elhanan

Ahalan, my sweet Smadari,

So many years have passed since that horrible day, where you suddenly disappeared from our lives forever, and yet to this day, whenever I open my phone and see your sweet face, my heart stops short and my blood freezing.

You exist within me. All the time. 59 seconds every minute, every day and every night, every time. All over again and again. I feel your presence. Time can never heal this wound. The unbearable ease with which life goes on, is an unsolvable riddle.

Always I long for you, your mischievous smile, your messy room and your friends. Your friends which are all grown up by now… with their own children, only you will forever remain a young girl. Never harmed a single soul.

Since you left, my life has changed completely. I am a totally a different person. Every morning I fly off on my black motorbike to Beit Jallah to meet my Palestinian brother Bassam. He also lost his beloved ten year old daughter, Abir. Since we met we have grown to be more than brothers, Both of us run from one place to another, and around the world to convince both Jews and Arabs, and the rest of the world, that it was not our destiny to lose our beloved daughters! that the cycle of blood can be stopped, and that there is no other way but through dialogue and reconciliation.

Would you believe that your anarchist father would one day become a political activist fighting the occupation? Would you have believed that your father , the extreme individualist would together with Bassam become the Directors of The Parents Circle – Families Forum? A bereaved Palestinian/Israeli organisation???

These activities give us a reason to get out of bed each morning, pushing us to seek some meaning for the senseless death of Abir and you and your friends and all the so many other innocent children from both sides.

I have a sense that you are standing behind me, looking over my shoulder and whispering “yes daddy continue for me. This is the path, there is no other way”.

Smadar’s room in Jerusalem