In memory of her beloved brother Stanley

Reeva Forman

On May 11 at the Israel Embassy in Pretoria, I attended the Yom Hazikaron ceremony for South Africans who fell defending the State of Israel.

During the ceremony, the following was recited:

It is not true that life continues

By Yair Lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid Party 

It is not true that life continues, they always say that but it is never true.

When you lose someone, your life, the way you know it, will never be the same. Your family is still yours but it is different now. Your parents are different. The way you sit around the table, the way you remember the trip to Greece, with the photo album of all the hilarious pictures you took, which now changed into a memorial document.

I really don’t think that life continues. People keep asking you the same simple questions such as “how are you”? And you know they actually mean either “we know” or “we’re here for you”. Every time you’re sad, they all stop by to cheer you up and you don’t know how to tell them you definitely don’t need a support group but you just want to hide under your blanket for an hour.

Who can possibly think that life continues? Even you can never be the same. You are the one who lost a relative. You are the one who watches alone the old TV show which you always used to watch together.

You’re the one that when you laugh, they say you managed to get over it. When you’re busy, they say you are really okay and if you leave home for more than two weeks, they say you probably ran away.

It’s not true that life continues; even your past is being edited. Every time you tell them how you took the bus together on some trip, you find yourself debating whether to mention him as “my brother” or, “my late brother”. Sometimes you just leave him out of the story because you don’t want any embarrassing moments.

Sometimes, when you meet someone who was out of the country for a long time and he asks you how your brother is feeling and you just answer “he’s not feeling anymore”, it’s you who need to comfort the shocked guy and say that “life continues”. But it doesn’t.

It is not true that life continues, it stops and then re-starts, differently.

I trust these words bring the same reality, yet with comfort, to a reader who has lost a loved one.

Thank you, Embassy of Israel.

 Johannesburg