“Even though I know that there was nothing I could have done to prevent the attack, I still feel as if I didn’t protect my family,” says David candidly. “A man who can’t protect his family feels emasculated.” Asked to hone into the most painful moments, David falls silent. Then, like a true father, he focuses beyond himself and says, “The hardest part was when I used to visit Chana after work and come home via the busy central bus station. Sometimes, I’d see a kid crying for his mommy and I’d think to myself: I wish Sara could cry for her mommy. With a few words, David sketches Sara’s reality: “My daughter doesn’t even remember what it is like to have a functioning mommy. No hugs, no kisses, no one to share motherly advice, to listen to her, to bake chocolate chip cookies before she comes home from school, or even to scold her when it’s needed.”
Michal Belzberg, co-founder of OneFamily, points out that, “It’s not at all obvious that terror victims will get back on their feet.” Yet, in spite of the horrible pain, David has found the strength to forge ahead. “I have a responsibility to carry on,” he says. Then he adds, “Everyone has something to cope with and some people have it a lot worse.”
David has created healthy outlets to channel his energies. An avid rap artist, all it takes is a twist of his cap and his costume is complete for him to treat us to an entertaining song that is one among the hundreds that he has written. With the support of OneFamiy, he has produced an exciting CD featuring two pieces of rap that he hopes can be sold to help fund OneFamily’s children’s camps. He also enjoys pen-palling, citing sporting celebrities such as bowler Curtis Odom and figure skater Emily Hughes among his corresponders.
Despite David’s admirable grit and creativity, it is only when I read a copy of the talk that Sara gave at a Chanukah gathering for the youth division of OneFamily that I grasp David’s greatness: “My father is my role model since he is so strong. He copes all on his own while taking care of me and the household, playing both roles of the mother and the father of the household. No matter how hard it is for him, he hardly ever breaks down in front of me.”
Sara’s Journey
Attending events organized by OneFamily are particularly therapeutic for participants because here they have a chance to connect to other terror victims – the only people who really understand what trying to rebuild your life after an attack means. Although Sara was involved in OneFamily throughout the years, she kept quiet about her past. “Sara’s story is different from those of the other kids in the group,” explains Roni Tzur, a counselor in OneFamily’s Youth Division. “She is mourning a mother who is actually alive. That means that she cannot close the circle of mourning.”
Sara used to visit her mother weekly. Family photos show a pretty blonde-haired daughter smiling at her mother’s bedside on her thirty-eighth birthday. The visits became progressively more difficult for Sara – so much so that when she reached sixth grade, she decided to stop. Much later, she described the logic behind her decision: “I didn’t live with her, didn’t grow up by her side, didn’t know her and she knew nothing about me. I felt that we had nothing in common,” Sara said.
During Chanukah of 2013, Sara was ready to share her story with her peers. In a talk the night before the end of the three-day-long Chanukah camp, Sara described how she had tried to live a normal life, by convincing herself that this life was her personal norm. She described her attempts to fill the emptiness in her heart with friends and shopping, but admitted that it didn’t work. “It never healed my pain,” she said. “My reality is that my mother was critically hurt and I am her daughter and I have to deal with it. There’s no avoiding it.”