My Yossi, You were my first love. We had eight years together, and I missed you even then since you’d given yourself to the sport. When you left, you left with the task of a lifetime and memorializing your legacy became the most important thing in my life. The day after the murder, I was in complete shambles, but stood tall for our daughters and promised them that your memory would be preserved forever. The difficulty comes during joyous occasions. I’m used to pain; I haven’t stopped aching for a minute. That has been the course of our lives ever since Munich. Our youngest daughter Shlomit, who was only six months old when you were taken away from us, never had the chance to pronounce the word “daddy”, but I’m happy to say that the three of them know exactly who you were, and our grandchildren are growing up in your image and with your values, as if you had lived among them. Not a day goes by when we don’t think of you, mention you and talk about you. And when I look at them I see your smile, your eyes, your curls, and the great love we were privileged to have. Do you remember how we’d go down to the beach with the girls on Saturdays, and people would gather around us, wanting to be close to you? You were a people person. Your charisma and the position you had reached as an athlete, made every outing a minifestival, and you gave of yourself to everyone with love and without pretense, never sparing a kind word, a big smile and hugs. We would play Three Sticks with the girls and were happy each time one of the girls was able to push a stick further. We would play with them for hours, I would show them how to do cartwheels, and you’d swing them high into the air, proud of their abilities. You used to place them on your big, strong hands and in fact taught them how to maintain equilibrium and balance, not only physical but also emotional, internal. This was your way of giving them – and me – strength. And you did a great job, Yossi. Our lives are good and balanced, and we never went insane. Two days before the delegation took off for Germany, we had a big party at our house. Everyone was there. Friedman, Berger and the rest of the team. At one point I said this trip was making me quake because the attack on Hanna Maron had happened five months previously, but you asked me to put it out of my mind. When the Germans do something, they do it all the way. On September 1st Oshrat entered first grade for the first time. You were already in Munich, all the parents had arrived with their children and she asked me why you weren’t walking her in. I told her that next year, when she went to second grade, you would take her to school and she would be the only girl showing up with her father. As we both know, fate had other plans. My Yossi, how you loved returning to your family every night, what a fun dad you were. You’d come back from training around 20:30, and play with the girls in the living room, peeling oranges and apples for them with skilled and elegant movements of the knife. You didn’t educate, you never chastised, you left all that to me. I was the educator who gave them boundaries, but I loved that division and enjoyed seeing you make them happy with gifts from every trip around the world, seeing you fool around with them like a kid. The morning of the kidnapping there was a knock on our door at 7:00. It was the neighbor, asking me if I’d heard what had happened in Munich, and I didn’t understand what she was talking about at all. I immediately phoned the Olympic Committee of Israel, and was informed that Muni had been killed. I sat by the phone and didn’t want to move until you called, until I heard your voice. At 18:00, a Galei Tzahal reporter came over, sat down on the couch and asked me what I demanded from the State of Israel. I said I had no demands, just for them to be brought back safe. I was the naïve one, having no demands. He already knew. An hour later there was another knock at the door, and the whole house was filled with people, and the stairwell was packed. The representative of the Olympic Committee of Israel, accompanied by a police officer and a doctor, told us you’d been badly injured, and I asked them to tell me the truth. “Ilana, Yossi is the second victim,” they said. A heavy fog descended on my life. I started walking towards the neighbor’s door, and fainted on the way. The next day I woke up, and the house was bustling with activity. I just asked if it was real, I thought I’d had a nightmare. I didn’t even remember who’d brought me to bed and where the girls had been taken. At noon I went to the balcony, and no one had yet told me that it was a total and cruel elimination. I thought that a member of the delegation would come the next day and tell me what Yossi had been through. I went to the airport to receive your coffin, and only there, when I saw lines of coffins on command cars. And everyone was there: Springer was gone, Friedman was gone, all your close friends were gone, and there was no one to tell me anything. I didn’t have to think. We drove to the cemetery, and I asked to see your face and say goodbye properly, but it didn’t happen. They told me it would be better for me to remember your big smiling face. We went back to your mother’s house, and our two older daughters came to meet me there. Their eyes were red and their lips were trembling, doing their best not to cry next to me. I told them they were allowed to cry, and that I was crying too, and then I added that I would be both father and mother to them, and I promised them that no one would ever forget their father. That was the moment our struggle to commemorate you and your memory began. It was the moment I went from being a naïve girl to a mature and sober woman, unafraid of an ongoing battle and ready to fight with all my strength to bring the truth and my justice to light. Thus began a stubborn 50-year struggle, led by myself and Andrei’s widow, Ankie’s, who became my best friend. It’s a struggle that is not yet complete. I did all I could to pass on the strength you’ve instilled in me to our daughters. I kept them together, talked to them at eye level; talking about you was always done openly at home and I stressed that feelings and crying is allowed. In hindsight, I would say they were great partners for me and made this entire just journey with me, big time. And it wasn’t easy. They idolized you even while you were alive, and even though they were young and couldn’t understand the circumstances of that disaster, they experienced the waves of ruin and destruction all too well. You gave Oshrat a mission when you went to Munich, and she was only six a half year old. You told her that she was the eldest and that you were expecting her to take care of mommy and help her. And she took that on herself. She helped me change Shlomit, learned how to make hot cocoa and made sandwiches for school with Racheli. Do you remember the little couch you brought for the kids from Italy? After your death, Oshrat and Racheli loved sitting on it, taking a knife from the kitchen and cutting olives and peaches for themselves, just as you did. They would imitate your special movements as you cut fruit for them. Yossi, you would have loved your grandchildren. One of the hardest things for us is that you never got to meet them nor they you. And yet, we believe that you’re looking down on us from above and like what you see. All your grandchildren are proud of you and are curious about you, and one of your granddaughters has a picture of you in your HaPoel Tel-Aviv uniform hanging in her room. They all grew up with your trophies and commemoration, it penetrated deep down, and your presence is significant in all of our homes. Oshrat and Racheli still remember your smiling eyes, with their special deep-blue shade. Shlomit wants to take this opportunity to tell you that she can’t seem to be able to dream of you but really wants you to come into her dreams or give her some other sign. Like you, she finds herself to be the lively and funny spirit of the group. Their childhood dreams were murdered and I know that they wish to receive some kind of sign from you from above. They share the same humor, as do some of the grandchildren, and often the laughter and joy of living they got from you, are mingled with sadness and a sense of missing out. They’ve matured too quickly, with too few memories; the touch and voice of a loving father. They lived with you at Wingate a month before you left for Munich. Oshrat remembers you playing backgammon with friends and making them grape juice. How they loved listening to the Israeli and Greek music you would play on the new stereo you bought. You were a warm, charismatic person who loved life, music and the beach. On the day of the massacre, when they told me it was Arabs who murdered their father and that the plane had been shot down, I told them that it wasn’t Arabs who killed their father, but terrorists. I didn’t want to strike that kind of fear into them. After all, you had Arab friends, and you yourself had been born in Libya and immigrated to Israel at a young age with your parents and your ten brothers and sisters. We celebrated the following holidays with your family. So many people, dozens, and the everything was done properly. We keep gathering the tribe but nowadays prefer a freer tradition. I wish you could sit with us for a family Friday dinner, we sometimes think you’re with us there. From above. Relishing it. My Yossi, I’m tired of the fighting, and I pray this closure will happen in my lifetime. I remain strong, like I think you would want to see me, and I’m completely ready to move every mountain that rises up in our way. I’m not alone, and that’s thanks to you too. We have three wonderful daughters, Oshrat, Racheli and Shlomit, who grew up to be strong women who are at my side. I know I kept the promise I gave them on that terrible day, and they’re your direct legacy. Know that they gave you eight wonderful grandchildren, and that’s the greatest victory. Yours always, Ilana