My beloved Ami, I’m gathering the fragments of my life to write you this letter, with great emotion. It’s been 50 years since you left me, and it’s as if it only just happened. Here I am, preparing a holiday dinner for Rosh Hashana evening, just me and my parents, our Shaike is five, and Shirley isn’t even six months old yet. And I walk into the stairwell with the fish I’d bought, Shirley in my arms, and I’m informed that you’ve been taken as hostages in Munich. 26 years old, a mother of two, not even knowing what hostages are. But my whole body knew that the worst had happened, and my world was destroyed. Now I have to talk about you, who you were, the fairytale story we had, and it’s so hard.I remember my first day at Glilot Base. I wanted to be close to my parents, who were Holocaust survivors, and my reassignment was approved. At 10 AM you walked into the room where I was being given a tutorial, a Reserves Lieutenant, sporty, blonde and blue-eyed. And how kind those eyes were. You smiled just for me, looking right into my eyes, introducing yourself and shaking my hand. And from that morning you were the one for me. A simple man who knew how to love, a great inspiration, a friend and shoulder to lean on. A shoulder that was as broad as your heart. You were older than me, divorced with two sons, Eyal and Oz, and I was a young and shy soldier, confused by the influence of your charisma and surprised by the attention. But I gave in to the forces between us, and on the seventh day, when you knelt under the moon at the Ramat Gan National Park and proposed to me, I didn’t think twice. Yes, a week-long acquaintance was enough, and so we began a wonderful life together that was cut short at once. Yours was taken from you, and mine went into deep freeze. We were a couple in love, and gradually built our lives together. Your love was strong, true and present in the little details: the evening you galloped in on the Lambretta to bring me dinner at the guard post. The glasses I forgot at home while studying at the seminar, and you walked into the middle of the lecture and crossed the room to hold them out to me. The attention with which you listened to me during our conversations. Agreeing to sell the Lambretta and switch to a car just because I was worried about you. When I was late into my pregnancy with Shai, the Six- Day War broke out, and you were sent to the Sinai. I had no way to communicate with you, and stayed at my parents’ house, so as not to go through those days alone. In the evenings there were blackouts, and we sat in the dark and worried about you. I missed you so much. I never stopped praying for your safety, wondering when the war would end and we could be together again. One night, at the stroke of midnight, there was a knock on the door and my heart skipped a beat. I was afraid that someone had come from the army to tell us that something had happened to you. But to my surprise, when I opened the door I saw your big, relaxing and familiar smile. Somehow, someway, you got a pass to go home and update me that you were okay. You knew how much of a worrywart I am, and made the whole long trip from the south just to calm me down, just to be with me for a few hours. When Shai was born, and we were living in housing for young couples in Ramat Hen, on the fourth floor, I had a tough time moving around with the baby carriage and we decided to sell the apartment and move to a more comfortable one in Herzeliya, which was on the main road to Wingate, your second home and sometimes even your first. I knew exactly who I was marrying. Sports was your life, and you were away from home for long periods of time. You’d often travel for competitions and supplemental courses, and I missed you very much. But I loved you just as you were, then and now. You were a diligent man for whom work was in his blood, flowing through his veins. When you went to bed at late hours, you were only asleep for a short time, and would get up early again because you opened and closed the training field. We’d sit together at night, you sketching the book you dreamt of publishing, and I, knowing how much it meant to you, laboring over the small typewriter you rented for me, typing up your manuscript, which was inlaid with dense words, that to my eyes resembled pearls. Know that after you were gone, I didn’t give up on your dream. With editor Emmanuel Gil, I published your book for coaches, and it’s served many good people. It was so important for you to pass on the ways of the profession you so loved, articulating the knowledge and experience you’d gathered and making it accessible. Even now, after all these years, I miss that time, longing to sit next to you, shoulder to shoulder, for just a few more moments, a few breaths more. In life you were a symbol and exemplar. You lived and breathed athletics. You trained, and guided, and lectured and built yourself an impressive career, and you still had so many plans and directions in which you wanted and dreamed of continuing to grow and develop. You raised a long line of athletes, and paved the way in the field of Track and Field training in Israel. My Ami, what a wonderful life we’d started. I remember how dedicated you were as a father, how you loved and cherished your four children. After every trip you’d bring us all expensive gifts and clothes, sparing only yourself. That’s how you were. You never felt a lack. You always took good care of us, enfolding us. Sometimes, on Saturdays, when you’d take me and the children to competitions at Wingate, you’d build a tent for us on the edge of the stadium, so we’d be cool and comfortable. How we loved being together. How could a person who believed in co-existence, whose heart was pure and truly, honestly loved people, travel to an event of brotherhood and sports, and not return? I can’t help thinking of the irony that a sensitive man of peace, who understood the other side, could die in a terror attack. And thus our seven years together came to an end, my seven good years. My Ami, 50 years later, I write to you and weep. Since then, my life has turned upside-down, and the pain hasn’t lessened. My parents have passed away in the meantime – and you know how attached I was to them – and all that time, this agonizing battle has been waged in the background by 11 families insisting on being acknowledged. But I knew I had to be strong for the children, and felt you with me on this path I walk without you. Finally, I found my place at the Ministry of Defense. I put the certificate of appreciation I received, after twenty years of working there, on the piano in the living room, next to the photo of you. My life before, and my life after. I regret only one thing, my love. The day we got word of the kidnapping, when the house was full of family members and friends, and news broke that Golda Meir wouldn’t negotiate, I refused to accept it. I told my parents that I was going to Jerusalem, to speak with the Prime Minister and beg her for my husband’s life. They stopped me, but it’s important for me that you know it hurts me to this day, and feels like a misstep. Maybe I could have convinced her? Maybe you could be sitting here with us if I’d gone after all? Maybe if Golda had seen me in my suffering, she would have softened her stance? Probably not, but I’ll never get answers to those questions, and that’s difficult to bear. Ami, our daughter Shirley is sitting here with me. See how she has your smile, your kind eyes, your heart that sees other people, and the hand reaching out to help. How happy you were when she was born, how you adored her, how you loved the smile that spread across her face when she saw you. On that accursed day, in September ’72, she was a five-month-old baby, and knows you only through stories, letters and photos. To grow up with an absence is like growing up with a hidden presence. Following in your footsteps, she chose to take up track and field and studied in a sports class. Like you she practices every day, and when she finally decided to study and get a degree in psychology, she specialized in post-trauma and depression among victims of hostile actions, and also wrote a thesis about heroic orphans. It wasn’t easy for her to grow up this way, with a hero father everyone knew and praised that she would never know. Every morning, before she went to kindergarten, Shirley would kiss your photo, and I’d watch with a twinge in my heart. Every Saturday she lights a memorial candle for you. Yes, ultimately she knows you no less than those who knew you in life. And I want you to see us now, sitting together and remembering you. I want you to feel her joy when she’s told that she resembles you. Know how much of you she’s passed on to her five-year-old son Liel, who’s also blonde and light on his feet. Eyal gave you three grandchildren: Natalie, Amizur who’s named after you, and Ofer. Oz has Shachak, Lahav and Ofek, Shai has Lior, Michael (Mikey) and Liad. Ten wonderful grandchildren, each of them talented, who know your story in its entirety. You even have great-grandchildren, Amizur. Look at this exemplary family. How I’ve enjoyed them. And then came what I considered to be the most important moment in the Olympic Games since Munich 1972. Tokyo 2020, the opening ceremony, and I’m at home, watching the broadcast with our old friend Tzvika. Suddenly, the minute of silence began, and I realize the moment we’d wished for all these long years was coalescing right before our eyes. We were moved to tears. But after the tears of relief and happiness came the thoughts that darkened the joy, and I’m left with mixed emotions. I was happy for us and for you, but asked myself why standing still for a minute took 49 years. Thank you, Amizur, for the most beautiful period of my life and the many parts of you left within us, to comfort us and bring us joy. I remain faithfully yours to this day. Your Shoshi