Together We’re Breaking
The Shared Pain of A Widow and A Hostage Family, and of Us All
Tuesday I published a video with the favorite song of Sagui Dekel Chen, along with the words of his brother Itai. You can see the post here to read more about Sagui, but today I simply share a poem written by Itai that touched me deeply.
The circles of pain, of lack, of loss are like nothing most of us have ever known. It is hard to know where to put the pain, how to hold it. And as heartbreaking as Itai’s words are here, his suggestion that exactly the loss and the pain that we are all experiencing— some, of course, more directly affected — others, one step away… together, we can find at least some solace.
Together We’re Breaking*
By Itai Dekel Chen, brother of Sagui Dekel Chen, captive for 412 days in Gaza
The saddest message I've ever heard,
Was sent to me by a widow left on her own with five sweet children.
On her way to the memorial service for her heroic and righteous husband -
to sing, remember, and hug her family and friends…
She just wants us to know,
that the memorial is incomplete,
and her grief is incomplete,
without the hostages.
Dear God-
Putting aside that we're broken,
Putting aside that even in our own homes we're sometimes strangers,
Putting aside that all of our joyous occasions are incomplete,
And putting aside that Shabbat and holidays - they are also no longer complete…
It turns out– the saddest thing is– that even inside the grief, there's something lacking. Of a young widow and five orphaned children.
They too,
In their lack
Are lacking.
And that's how it is now –
An endless spiral.
We are all groping in darkness,
Navigating the abyss.
Lacking with the lack of others.
Empty vessels.
And precisely within this terrible void,
Inside the burdensome 'nothingness', and the blinding darkness,
There is some new point.
I think it is called 'Together'.
A point of meeting between the fragments that were once 'I',
And the fragments that were once 'you'.
After all, we both no longer exist,
And therefore, we can finally meet.
Because there is almost nothing left of me -
Just a little self-pity and perhaps a shadow of some distant truth.
And 'you' too - you are no longer -
You too are just a distant echo of an ancient cry…
The widow and her children, they are seemingly so far from the landscape of my home ground.
They are the 'other' in all its glory and existential threat.
We met as evacuees to the same hotel - a kindredness of refugees.
But now… now they are our fragments,
and we are their lack.
Deep in the pit, deep in the darkness -
Her pain is my pain.
And this pain, it can also comfort.
It may be that one day 'together we will win'.
For now, at least, together we’re breaking.
*The slogan of this war is Yachad Ninatzeach- Together We’ll Win. The writer is playing off this in this poem.