Childish Friends

This last friendly post is about my favourite-bestest friends in the entire world. The type of friends that have been my friends forever and will remain my friends forever. It's about my childhood friends. Those that I grew up with. Those that I went to school with.

At the age of 2 I met Boaz in kindergarten. Unfortunately, I cannot give you an account of how we met or what was the first thing we said to each other. But I can assure you it wasn't intelligent nor brilliant. Knowing us, it was probably something stupid or funny like "wanna make a castle in the sand?" Boaz and I were inseparable for the following 16 years. Only the army was able to seperate us and send us far from each other. But they couldn't keep us apart during the weekends and vacations. We're like brother and sister. By some very strange turn of events we both ended up in the same profession - Construction Management, so now we still have a lot in common to talk about. Actually, I need to explain something - Boaz is the brother I always wanted instead of my brother who was seven years older. We'd go to movies together, scouts, parties, trips, you name it. We studied together for the matriculation exams. We experienced life together.

When Boaz sent me the wedding invitation, my husband and I made the trip from the U.S. to be at his wedding in Israel. The following day, their honeymoon - we spent with them - touring Jerusalem. So yeah, he's that type of friend.

Boaz and his wife have one kid. On New Year when we spoke on the phone, I found out the wonderful news - his wife is pregnant again. I'm so thrilled to hear it. If there are any parents in the world that deserve to raise many more kids - it'd be them. So Boaz and Hilla - MAZAL TOV!

On November 14 this year I will be celebrating 20 years since I became best friends with Shelly. Yes, it's a marked date on the calendar that we both commemorate with a silly phone call of "do you remember" every single year. Shelly and I were in the same class from sixth grade. I had nothing in common with her. I was a snob. I preferred befriending other snobs. Didn't want anything to do with someone unpopular in sixth grade. Then I got ill in the 9th grade and hospitalized. All my snob friends left me. They did the typical cruel teenager thing - made fun of my looks and forgot about personality and friendship, and within a week I became unpopular. That's when three girls from my class came to visit me in the hospital: Shelly, Tsori and Galit. Overnight I found out who my real friends were. So in an odd way I'm thankful I got so sick.

One week in the 10th grade we were on a school trip, helping the army mend the border fence with Syria. Shelly and I spent the evening talking about...(ok, is it really that difficult to figure out we had talked about guys?). Within an hour we found out we were infatuated with the same kid in class. We were both the shy girls. So we made a bet. Whoever gets him first - the other one owes her a candy bar (it was one of those "walking sticks" filled with candy). That bet will be 20 years old on November 14th. Neither of us won. Though, she got closer to the target than I ever did.

To explain to others my friendship with Shelly would be stupid, because no one could possibly understand the silly humour we have between us.

My friendship with her is an example of what I was willing to give up in life to maintain my friendship. We selected the same major in high school - math and physics. Within a year and a half, I realised she was about 100 IQ points above me when all her math and physics quizes came back with 100 (mine were in the 60's and 70's). I did some serious thinking and determined that with my competitive personality and my extreme jealousy it was best for our friendship if I left the class and moved to a different major. I requested the teacher to move me mid-year. He tried to discourage me telling me that my grades were not that low that I'd need to move and that he felt I could make it. I never told him the real reason. I just told him I don't like math and prefer Biology. I don't regret that decision one minute. I would have done it over again.

By the end of Channukah that year I was ready to move to the Biology major, where Tsori was already a veteran (she made this smart move several months before me). Tsori, Shelly and I became inseparable and spent many afternoons together. One day I'll have to write about the surprise birthday party they did for me for my 18th birthday.

Tsori lives in Jerusalem now, with her husband and three kids. I wish I could meet her more often during my visits to Israel. But friends remain friends, regardless of distance.

Tsori and Shelly were my only girl - friends 'til I turned 30. I hated all girls. All my friends were male.

Then there's 6'8" best friend, nine days apart in age - Doron. I'm older. I won't let him forget it. We met after high school. In a refresher course for math, before registering at the university. He came over, sat next to me, and said, "I know you. You used to go to this school...." Needless to say, I didn't remember anyone 6'8" and was in quite a shock that a stranger would approach me like that. I think it took us a day to become best friends. If there's anything I regret in life it's not knowing him at school. But he used to play basketball with all these guys that used to smoke, and I hated smokers, so I completely ignored him - thinking he was one of them. He wasn't. He hated smoking, too. He just played with them basketball. He wasn't friends with them.

Doron is one of those friends that I think every person should have. He calls me, writes letters, sends me stuff, makes me laugh, cares about me. Not enough words can describe his friendship. Yet another friend whose wedding I attended after special arrangements to travel from the U.S. to Israel to attend his wedding.

These are my friends from childhood. Best friends. But there's one more. A friend who will forever remain 13.

David. Killed at point blank with a shotgun pointed at his chest, when his "friend" played Russian Roullete. He was 13. Just had his Bar Mitzvah.

David was my bestest friend in the entire world since we were 5 or 6 (who can remember?!). We lived close to each other. We would spend every waking hour together. Waking hours ranged from 6am through 11pm. David was my first kiss. There. I said it. We were just experimenting. David was also my first love. No, it was never reciprocated, and I even introduced him to his girlfriend. But David was the one I was supposed to marry one day - at least that was what I had dreamt of.

It feels wierd to write his name or write about him. I've been traumatized so much by his death that I cannot say his name out loud. Thankfully I had never met anyone else named David in Israel (the Hebrew pronounciation is different from the English).

I still dream about him. The deepest pain I had ever felt in the world was when he died. Nothing can return him and I don't think I've come to terms with that knowledge. In my dreams, I find out he's been alive all these years and he purposely hid from me. I get angry at him for having caused me this pain.

My friendship with Boaz had strengthened tremendously after David's death. We were both his best friends. We held each other through that difficult time. A silent agreement between us meant - we don't talk about him. We were both comfortable with it.

In a couple of hours Yom Kippur begins. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement for the Jews. It's a day when we fast from sundown to sundown. 25 hours of no drinking or eating. I used to spend Yom Kippur with David. We would fast together (long before it was mandatory when we became Bar and Bat Mitzvah). We would run around the synagogue, waiting for our mothers to leave. We would take chocolate bars in our pockets to tempt the elderly fasting men. We would walk up and down the street (no cars are allowed to drive on Yom Kippur). Yom Kippur was our day.

Since his death, I cannot go through Yom Kippur without thinking of him. I fast because of the memories. I fast because I want to remember the good times.

I also fast because Yom Kippur is when we apologise to our friends and family for anything we may have said or done that hurt them this year.

So that's the end of my Friendly Project. My apologies to all my friends for anything I said, or didn't say, that may have hurt you or offended you this past year and previous years. I apologise for not being the best friend, for not keeping in touch as often, for not always being there for you. But you, my friends, are always on my mind.

And with this, I will close the computer for the next two days.