Recently I had a most extraordinary experience. Most of it was "internal musings", while the "action" was all "outside", at a gathering of nearly 100 people, 98 of whom I had never met in my life. It as a ten year memorial event/gathering to mark the passing of Silvio Blau, who was only 55 when the cruel, debilitating, neurological disease called ALS tore him from his devoted family, friends, work, country and life.
If anyone were to catch a quick glimpse of the event without knowing anything about it, they would probably identify it as a "party" with people (mostly in their second half of life, but not all) enjoying food, drinks, laughs and companionship in an inviting house and lovely garden in the Jaffa part of the city of Tel Aviv- Jaffa, which is known for its mixed Arab and Jewish population in the center of Israel. Silvio was a veteran tour-guide by profession, specializing in Spanish-speaking pilgrims coming to Israel, he was amazingly popular as a tour-guide, for his famed sense of humor, intelligence, storytelling and bright, smiling eyes with which he greeted everybody. Silvio who was born in Uruguay, raised in Argentina, came to Israel at age 19, studied Agricultural Sciences in Israel before being drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces. It was in the context of the latter that I met and befriended Silvio, for a short, memorable and, in the end, uniquely meaningful year+ for me in ways that I am still trying to figure out for myself.
A Memorial for the past and for the future
What I found extraordinary at this "commemorative party" was that I was experiencing a multitude of feelings, all at once, not knowing where exactly I was at the very moment. We were clearly invited to share with Silvios's wife and three lovely adult children in coming together in rekindling the memory of a dear person, a full ten years after his passing. There was a new book offered that was compiled and released by Silvio's wife and friends, anecdotes full of humor and wisdom that Silvio recorded towards the end of his life, in many a sundry way and in the midst of extreme difficulty. The family spoke movingly, as we sat quitely, empathically listening to the longing, the pain, the memory, the dedication to legacy. A few of us who were not family members spoke briefly, as I did, each bringing a slightly difference angle of memory and emotion. We could feel the sadness but in some way it was different than the sadness I had last experienced a full ten years ago. The years that had gone by had created a "holding place" to keep that sadness, so that life apparently could flow on...
But there was another kind of sadness which emerged in me, despite the vivaciousness of the crowd, a sadness which made me wonder. As I heard the Spanish speakers with Argentinian accents vocally rise above the rest, I could not help recalling how many of the members of the Kibbutzim that were invaded, houses burned, inhabitants massacred/taken hostage to Gaza by the Hamas on October 7, 2023, were comprised of the very same profile: immigrants to Israel, in their sixties and seventies, from Argentina and other South-American Jewish communities. Many came in their late teens or early twenties as part of Zionist youth movements, mostly socialist-oriented, pro-peace and co-existence supporters and demonstrators...this population which exprienced the worst of the horrors, were also increasingly alienated in Israeli society in the past decades of right-wing governments, as the values and codes they came with from home were less and less appreciated in the Israel of today. I recall how I once marvelled at their "latino passion"- Israeli version-and that for quite some time I was feeling sad that they are no longer seen and felt in our daily lives. I heard them, saw the age on their faces and wondered what they were feeling today, amidst this special event of commemoration and coming together around the person who was absent but also the center of everyone's attention- the late Sivio Blau.
These were not normal days, well into 9 months of war, even if this was Tel-Aviv, I wondered what was going on in the hearts of minds of every person in this party: whose children or grandchildren were now fighting in Gaza or in the north, who was experiencing grief, where was the anxiety and how do they see the future? Yes, the conversation was lively, the place was packed and the food was plentiful, but...in their heart's heart, what was going on there? Here too I felt sadness.
There was another sadness of a more direct and personal kind for me. I thought of Silvio and I thought of myself: we both are of the same age of 65, both of us had left our home country to immigrate to here, he at 19 from Argentina, I at 21 from the US. He had studied agriculture and did not work in it, just as I had . We had come here to bring and create our lives and future here. Tragically his life has come to an end at 55, and I have been blessed to have it continue, now at 65.
I felt that here we all were indeed remembering the past with love and respect- ten years later- but soon we too will be past, and the way people will see things then in the future might be very different as we see them here right now. This was the feeling that came over me: we are not just memorializing Silvio from the past but creating a memory for someone in the future to look back on who we are now.
Silvio: an unfinished memory
Have you ever noticed that in some cases on our life's path we meet and engage with people for only a short time or in a passing experience, but that their influence, impact and memory take hold and stay with us forever? Such was my experience with Silvio.
We met and became friendly during our military service time in a small settlement in the north of Israel, near Carmiel, called "Eschar". It was the place to where they moved the now defunct Agricultural Insitute of the Nachal (the "Midrasha"), which was for about 3 decades situated at the very corner of an army base called "Machane Shmonim" near the town of Pardes Chana in north central Israel. The Nachal at that time was an army unit that for years represented a combined military and agricultural settlement experience for one's compulsory service. The year was 1981-1982 and both Silvio and I were instructors in these programs. There was a lot of "down time" in this place, nothing really meaningful seemed to happen. Silvio and I immediately connected, we practiced and taught some of our colleagues a bit of yoga, we had interesting conversations and in some way shared and explored the challenges of what it meant to be an "Oleh Chadash" (new immigrant to Israel): where would all this strange, non-combatant army service take us? Why can't we do something more meaningful in our service? When the First Lebanon War broke out in 1982, he and I were sent to guard a northern Israeli settlement called Nimrod in the north of the Golan Heights. Here too we did next to nothing and just waited out our time till the war ended. I was later told that following this period, when I had already completed my service and left on my journey to the East, Silvio volunteered to join a combat unit and did some military service there and many years of reserve duty. All this I never knew during the 30+ years we were not in touch.
While at the Midrasha, I remember thinking that Silvio was a really a good guy, he seemed to "have it all" and I recall fearing that he might be able to "steal the girl" I wanted to go out with- after all, he was good-looking, intelligent, soft-spoken, he had these bright eyes that lit up when he talked, and when he talked you would somehow stop your own train of thought and just listen to him. I never did ask him about this, that is if he was thinking of "stealing my girl" (which she never was, in fact). Actually, I think it was all in my head and he thought nothing of this. I had a lot of things in my head in those days that I wonder about today.
I will never forget that Silvio told me about a really special yoga ashram and teacher he was in touch with- or knew about- in Pune, India. I remember getting really excited about the idea of spending time with this teacher when I would travel to the Far East. I would surely contact him about this.
I did go to the Far East, on that trip I had conjured up, but in fact it was for 4.5 years, as well as 5 months in India. I never contacted Silvio about his teacher in Pune. In fact, I don't think we even talked for over 30 years, there might have been an email or two, but we never had a conversation that I can recall. I can't remember why and can only ascribe it to the fact that when you part from someone and have no joint connection, add to that great distances betwen you, if you make no effort to keep up the contact, it will wane, and wane and eventually disappear.
Somewhere in early 2014, by some coincidental occurence, it became known to me that Silvio was very ill. The person who told me had no idea that I knew Silvio and it just became obvious to me when he was describing the person who was his relative and saying that he was "ill"...I somehow figured it out on my own.
It hit me like a brick wall- what???!! Are you sure? Saddened and shocked I made up my mind that this time I would not "disappear" but I would connect. I did. The sadness and shock did not dissipate but only grew.
Visit to Jerusalem
I don't specifically recall when it was but I know it was from the very first moment that I got the news that Silvio was essentially dying, that my thoughts began to run. This was the third time that I had received such a shocking piece of news "out of the past" from this small group of people who were once together in the Midrasha, from a time when we were all younger, probably bolder and more daring. The first one was about Dov Mali, an Oleh Chadash (new immigrant) from Italy who lived on Kibbutz Baram, on the northern border of Israel, as of this time one of the Israeli settlements that have been dislocated because of the war with Hizbollah in Lebanon. Dov was an avid mountain climber, a fervent socialist and a very quiet and cultured individual. When I had returned from my graduate studies in the US, again by chance, word got to me: Dov had been killed in an avalanche in Russian with tens of other mountain climbers. I remember feeling dismayed, how long ago this happened and that I had not known.
The there was Ilan Loboda, the one and only, the commander of the Midrasha, himself a combat soldier who had been wounded and had his medical profile lowered during his military service. He received this unusual and unorthodox job of managing the Midrasha, which he took with a no less unusual approach: he would help himself and "his soldiers/instructors" have fun, take as much time off as possible, he would find a way to manipulate the military bureaucracy and "protect us all" into doing as little as possible. Unfortunately, when the war in Lebanon broke out he volunteered to return to active combat service, where he contracted an intestinal disease which in later years- I am told- led to stomach cancer. When he died I attended his shiva and found a way to reconnect with this unforgettable individual. We were not close friends but he was a person I would never forget for who he was, the way he was, and now, the way he passed away.
However nothing could prepare me for my visit to Silvio on that day in early 2014 when I went to see Silvio at his home in Jerusalem.
Seeing him at first site caused me to freeze, and I tried my best not to let his wife and whoever was around notice this. There he was, immobile in his chair, not able to move his body, he was still able to talk a abit, his bright eyes still lit up the room. He had the same accent in his slow, labored speech, his warmth and intelligence pervaded but there was no mistaking what I was experiencing: a tragedy unfolding, a life lived too short, a family who was undergoing the kind of pain that no one should experience. I can't remember if there was laughter in his speech, I am guessing that there was not. As I left the house, parting from his wife, I promised her and myself that I would return, perhaps with some others from the Midrasha.
Leaving his home I felt disappointed in myself. Angry that I had lost the opportunity to have cultivated a long-lasting friendship with a dear individual. It was I, so I felt, who could have...should have...why didn't I...keep in touch all these years! And now, as Silvio lay in front of me withering away, I cried inside myself, outside myself and deep inside for moments not owned, opportunities not materialized, time not maximized. What was is no longer. And what is happening just now, I recall thinking, will soon become history.
When I returned home I sent messages to some friends from the Midrasha suggesting that we all go together to Jerusalem to see, give respects, part from, connect, to Silvio at this dire time. I was troubled that not one of them felt the need, desire or courage to do so. In retrospect I can understand them, but I can also "understand myself". Not everybody is open to and prone to, wanting to explore, dig down and critically view him/herself when such tragedies come to the for. Death is something we learn to deny, and most people won't go out of their way to come close to it so long as they can.
I later found this film that was taken of Silvio and those close to him in his final months of life- very moving, penetrating, honest and difficult to see but important to remember...
God Writes Straight With Crooked Lines
And yet, one thing I am content about is that I did come again to Jerusalem to see Silvio one last time before he passed on. Alone. He was prone in his bed, unable to talk but able to type with a light on his nose that sent a message to the computer screen which spelled out words, slowly, very slowly, and very deliberately. When we parted this time I felt that my own words were very slow and very deliberate. It was clear that this was the end of my opportunity to reconnect with an old friend. What was, was. The years that had transpired were not to be changed, his fate was not to be changed, and what I had managed, and mostly had not managed to rekindle, would never change.
Ten Years Later
In this party/commemoration of life, death and memory ten years later I came away with many feelings, all of them I choose to see as "teaching moments", teaching me different points on the continuum between life, death and memory.
We really do not have a second chance to continue our first attempt.
That even if we do it will never be the same, and that too will come to an end.
That life is to be lived and savored, BECAUSE it is fleeting and insubstantial.
We need to treat the important things in life as important, remembering to keep them important- otherwise the wind and the river of life will just sweep them away.
Awareness is above all not just "good practice" but actually a life skill that helps meaning to guide you and not just "the passage of time".
But perhaps one point of optimism is here to be learned, I say to myself. That sometimes people come into your life for just a short time but they leave their imprints, their footsteps in your soul.
Meaning of life comes in all sorts of packages. We can smile and cry, be angry and compassionate, share our regrets and count our blessings.
And remember, that each day, each moment we get just another chance.
It too will pass.
Let's seize it if we can, and then release it if we can't.
Our life is unique. No one has ever lived it. It is for us.
Totally for us.
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