My Beautiful Son: Marc Gafni

As y’all know I rarely write blogs about my own life. Today is a rare exception. It has been a hard day. A very hard day. I just got off the phone with my son, Eytan. The one about whom I always tell the story about the Soul Print box. Both of us laugh about the story all the time.

It captures a moment between us. Although like most stories of this nature it is more apocryphal – mythic rather then precisely historical, and it has evolved over time… And it holds – like all myth does the deeper truth of life.

In tomorrow’s blog perhaps I will share the story.

Anyways, Eytan just got back from 15 horrendous days as the commander of a group of Israeli special forces commandos who were serving in Gaza. I will not – at this time – tell the stories he told me. They are stories of death. And heroism and man’s insanity against man. Three times he met death only to miss it by a fraction, a hairs breadth or in the tragic way of the soldier standing for a value higher then even life – he was left with no option other then to deal out death to protect life.

After Gaza he spent two weeks with his unit – re training- readying for whatever might happen next. A day or two after that – he caught a ride from the base towards his Kibbutz. There was a head on collision. He was thrown from the car with his leg caught in the door.

It is beyond a miracle that he is alive. One leg was badly damaged. After two surgeries, he is now in Safed waiting to be moved to Tel HaShomer, an army rehabilitation hospital.

We spoke at length last night. I have always been close to my two boys Eytan and Yair. After Lisa and I divorced, some 18 years ago, like for many loving fathers, they became even more of a sacred principle of my life.

For many years, I would see them in my house in Beruria in Jerusalem or in Givat Mordecha or in their home in Shilo. I was privileged to never miss a visit with them – when i was in Israel- for close to a decade. The steadiness of my love to them – by the grace of God – bore fruit in our relationship.

Deep and beautiful fruit.

As they got older and began high school they went through many stages of development.

Not easy.

As the years went on we became closer and closer. The last year I lived in Israel was perhaps – energetically – our closest period. Passover 2006 we were – perhaps at the deepest and highest point of our love.

And then an explosion rocked our family and tore us apart. Not in the deepest places. Not our core love. But on so many other levels in so many other ways. Tremendous geographic distance came between us.

As a result I missed being in Israel for all of my Eytan’s army service. Yair, his brother begins his service soon. I called him at this swearing in ceremony in July 2006 and we both cried. We spend a week hiking in Cyprus a year go and then have collectively made three trips to visit me in Utah.

They desperately want me to come back to Israel. “Anachnu Trzricim otcha Abba”. “We need our father here” they say to me with unbearable pain and poignancy.

My heart breaks.

I pray that all conflict be resolved in peace and dignity -without further pain. I have prepared for the path of the warrior. Fully. I have – with a great team of people – done all that is necessary in that regard. Yet my heart yearns for the path of the peacemaker. Peace requires, courage, humility and the re-opening of the heart.

I am ready. My heart is open. I will wait. Till tomorrow or next week or next year or five years from now. I will not close my heart.

In this blog more is unsaid then said. But that is way it should be.

with open heart and prayer.

mordechai

marc gafni
posted on marcgafni.com
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