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Dear Yarden, It’s 4:30 am. I wake up thinking about you. That must sound crazy, but I’m certain I’m not the only one. One of the things that I fell in love with since the aftermath
Twin heads of copper hair
blindingly bright like
sun-fires in the
very eyes of God
that bore a hole
through the conscience
of an indifferent world.
I waited for you for 15 months,
I thought about you every day,
I missed you everyday
I had hope for your return for 15 months
One day
I’ve got –
Them.
Funny, clumsy, crying.
Kids.
Cubs.
Days
passed.
My cubs played.
They grew strong, beautiful, shining.
Kind.
And then
that
day
came.
The characters will be a mother (Imma) and her two young sons in honor of the mother Shiri Bibas and her two sons, Kfir and Ariel, brutally ripped from their home in Israel and taken hostage by Hamas terrorists where they have been held apart from their father Yarden Bibas (also a hostage) in the labyrinthine tunnels of Gaza since 7 October 2023 and continuing.
“Oh, a little gingy boy”, she says softly and I automatically smile and begin to say thank you, sure she is about to tell me how cute gingy boys are, how her grandson is a gingy boy, how gingy boys have a little extra spark, or any of the other comments older Israeli women love to make …
Here we are, nearly 2 months into the war, and navigating through a week that’s been an emotional rollercoaster. The thing we most wanted, what we were waiting and praying for, is beginning to come to