How long has it been, I asked 70-year-old Pini Rabinovich.
In response, he pulled out a horribly accurate answer: "Twenty-five years and three months less two days."
That's how I got straight to the face of his paternal pain on Desi, the beautiful girl who remained until the age of 19. The hours, minutes and seconds since the cancer defeated his daughter, in 1996, did not count out loud, but they seemed to be beating in his heartbeat.
The loss did not bring down Pini, but rather stimulate him to work around the clock for the sake of other families who have lost a child.
The loss of a child not in terrorism or war, but in civil bereavement, has no aura of heroism, nor support from the state or the military.
There is only a private but, which is often also very lonely to suffocating.
For years he visits mourning houses, accompanying the parents even on the eighth day, as he calls the period after the seven days of mourning, when all the comforters disperse and silence envelops the house.
For the sake of these families, in 2015 he founded the "Yakir Li" association and initiated the "Eighth Day" project, for the training of volunteer teams in the local government, who accompany the bereaved family and help them return to routine as much as possible.
At the same time, the association assists the bereaved brothers, with special kits they built for young brothers and also with emotional care, as well as funding mental health care for the grieving family members.
When Bruria (67), Pini's wife, returned from work, a cheerful breeze entered the house in Efrat.
"I'm already retired, and I have three great-grandchildren, but I was called to teach new immigrants who came to Efrat straight from the nylon," she explains.
Alongside her work as a teacher, and being a full-time grandmother, she manages a GMC of wedding dresses, and to this day has accompanied hundreds of brides. “He deals with the dead, and I deal with the living and with happy things.
At least together we are balanced, "she scolds her husband with a smiling face.
They met 50 years ago in a performance by the young Shlomo Artzi at the Religious Youth Center in Haifa.
She arrived after all the tickets were sold out and was allowed to enter for free and sit on the windowsill.
He was sitting in a nearby chair.
"I felt like someone was looking at me all the time. When our eyes crossed, he asked if I would be more comfortable in a chair," Bruria recalls, and they exchange romantic looks like Yuval has not passed since.
At the end of the show he offered to accompany her home.
"And everything else is history," she laughs.
Five children were born to them: Miri (46), the late Desi, Shai (41), Reut (38), Elishav (35). On Bruria's hand is a bracelet with 23 gold circles on which are engraved the names of the 23 grandchildren. Of joy ", which took root in the Israeli discourse, the late Desi spontaneously responded with a voice message she left to two 8-year-old girls who visited her at Rambam Hospital, where she was being treated for advanced cancer.
She urged them to go out and sing to the other patients, and they recoiled at first, until they agreed.
Their difficulty in making others happy bothered her, and she called their booth that evening.
When left unanswered, she left a voicemail that became her spiritual will for joy and giving that expands in hidden and painful places in the body, filling them with small circles of joy.
Inspired by the text, which is taught in schools, youth movements and the IDF, Micha Sheetrit wrote the song "Little Joys".
For two and a half years, Desi struggled with her illness, during which she continued her studies, was a communist in Bnei Akiva in Efrat and volunteered for the Zichron Menachem organization.
Everyone who met the girl whose shining eyes shone from her scaly face was captivated by her charm.
The late Desi Rabinovich. Expanding giving, Photo: From the family album
Three months before her death, Desi became famous following a struggle she had with Prof. Eliezer Rachmilevitch, who refused to give her supportive care at Hadassah Hospital after she chose to continue her main treatment with another doctor at Rambam Hospital. Hit the waves.
Following the publication, the Ministry of Health set up a committee that examined the complaint and decided to file a complaint against Prof. Rachmilevitch.
The Complaints Committee ruled that Rachmilevitch's behavior was inappropriate for a doctor, and even endangered his life.
From here, Desi became a symbol of the patient's right to decent care, and to receive a "second opinion" as part of the medical procedure.
• • •
Pini knows the loss from a young age, when his mother died three months before his bar mitzvah.
"I carry on decades of orphanhood. We, Bruria and I, were privileged to maintain a very close relationship with my father, who lived with us for many years until he passed away, and also with her mother after she was widowed. Our children grew up in a home where there is no need to talk about honoring parents, just living him".
Before Desi died, Pini was a businessman and a housewife importer.
He accompanied her through years of battling the disease, but continued to support the family.
Bruria, for her part, took a leave of absence from the teaching and clung to her daughter. Desi passed away on Rosh Hashanah at the family home in Efrat. "I did not say goodbye to her.
I believed in her optimism for the new year, and in the confidence she served that she would defeat the disease, "says Pini.
After the sad holiday, Bruria made it clear to all the children that everyone was returning to their own framework and routine.
"I myself returned to work immediately after the holidays," she says.
But Pini was unable to return to the previous routine.
Although he ran the business again, and also continued to run the Yad Sarah branch he had established a few years earlier in Efrat, he lacked something.
The space created was filled voluntarily by the "One Family" organization, which accompanies the families of victims of terrorism.
When he found his place there, he decided to sell the business and began working for the organization as the coordinator of the Jerusalem and South districts.
"It was during the severe terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, and later the missiles on the south. I would visit the hospitals almost every day, and unfortunately also the mourners' houses."
At the same time, the Rabinovich family became an address for parents who lost their children to illness and accidents.
"People called us in despair. Bruria would talk to the mothers for long nights. We learned what not to say. For example, not to say 'be strong.' Just contain the pain, be attentive and encourage people to translate the pain into action. Breaking in pain, they slowly recovered and set up an amazing center in memory of their son, who today fills their entire world.
"We were also approached by people whose children were diagnosed with cancer. We warned them not to listen to all the advice people spread. We were flooded with all sorts of angular advice, for example, to get material secreted by sharks in India. We explained to parents to put earplugs and not listen. At the same time, do not be afraid to accept a second opinion. "
For 17 years, Pini worked for the "One Family" organization, but it was precisely the close accompaniment of national bereavement that made it clear to him how much parents who have lost their children in civil bereavement also needed support and guidance.
"I really liked the 'One Family' team, but I was very hurt by their attitude to civil bereavement. We once sat in a forum where all the bereaved parents on the staff introduced themselves. When they came to me, they missed me. I said I was a bereaved father too. Then my friends, the people I am very Love, I was told, 'You do not understand bereavement, because you had time to say goodbye'.
"To this day, I bleed here, in the neck, from this knife that was stabbed in me, especially because I did not say goodbye to Madassi. But I understood the hint, it was forbidden to talk about civilian bereavement in the association."
He did his work for civil bereavement outside of his work in "One Family."
He came to mourning homes, accompanied families, and as needed promoted relevant legislation in the Knesset.
"I have no purpose in comparing national bereavement to civil bereavement, neither in benefits nor in anything, but I have a purpose in supporting the parents of civil bereavement and putting them on their feet.
"It is also in the interest of the state. Every year, more than 1,000 children in Israel die from birth to the age of 18. Someone has to accompany the parents who have lost their loved one, and the siblings who have lost a brother and live daily the parents' pain and sometimes their dysfunction."
As early as 2013, even before he founded his association, he succeeded in promoting a law, together with MK Tamar Zandberg, which stipulated that a family whose child died under the age of 18 would receive a one-time grant of NIS 9,000.
He later succeeded in promoting a vocational rehabilitation law for parents who have lost their child.
"Many times parents sat next to the sick child and did not work for a long time. They are not always able to return to the job they worked for before the child's death. After meeting several such cases, I realized how important it is to offer these parents vocational rehabilitation.
"The third law in the field was promoted by Bezalel Smutrich, I was just a partner. Parents of a killed soldier are entitled to retire five years later from retirement age. "Why is this law in favor of the parents? They asked me to answer in one sentence. I said it was good for the state and also for the person himself that he would get up in the morning, and instead of going to the cemetery - go to work. That was enough. They understood the importance, and the law passed."
• • •
Pini knows the pumping to the cemetery by himself.
Although his day is tiredly busy, he occasionally sneaks into Desi's grave in Kfar Etzion.
Bruria his wife does not like it: "For me once a year, at a memorial service, definitely enough. I'm not tied to a stone. Desi is with me all the time."
Bruria was inspired by the idea to open a GMO of wedding dresses from a photo left behind by Desi. The photography.
Bruria says that one of Desi's friends got married right after high school, and Desi, even though she was already sick and weak, accompanied her to the bridal salon.
The salon owner, hearing about Desi's illness, allowed her to measure one of the dresses and put on makeup.
“It gave me the inspiration to set up a GMC wedding dresses, and that’s how I participate in a lot of joys.
"Almost every evening a different bride arrives, and I accompany her in choosing the dress."
Pini: "Bruria invests hours in this. Sometimes she goes out at nine in the evening to the Gamach and returns only after midnight."
Bruria: "It's true. I invest a lot of time in each bride, so that she finds the dress that is most beautiful for her, and along the way I also talk to them and make them funny. One day I will write a book about all the stories I heard from brides. I get energy from their joy and try to give back."
Desi in a bridal costume.
The photo that inspired it, Photo: From the family album
Bruria says that apart from the phrase "circles of joy", Desi also invented a special verb - to rejoice.
"Were you happy today? What did you do today to make others happy and especially to make yourself happy?", Desi would ask family and friends.
"You, Pini, are not making yourself happy enough," Bruria Baruch turns to her husband.
Pini quotes Ecclesiastes in response: "'It's good to go to a house but a queen to a banquet house'. Every time I come to comfort bereaved parents, and they say thank you, I answer them - happily. "To the mourning house it is a mitzvah, and to do a mitzvah is a happy thing. Desi sits here on my back and tells me 'go on.' My children and grandchildren tell me to 'go on.' It's hard, but I love it.
And maybe Desi, in her whispers behind your back, is actually angry and would not want to see you visit mourning houses all the time?
"Bruria is mad at me," he smiles and then gets serious.
"Desi is not angry, she comes with me. I do not deal with bereavement, I go with him, go with Desi."
Bruria: "Desi told her sister that she cares about Dad, because he does not know how to be happy. Pini has endless giving to others, but to himself less. I think it is worthwhile, Pini, to be nice to Pini as well."
"I do not have time to be nice to myself," he mutters.
I ask if the fundamentally different nature of mourning between them does not create tension in the relationship.
They laugh and say that over time they have adapted to it.
Bruria supports Pini's activities, and Pini is sent to bring wedding dresses from all over the country, and also serves as Bruria's private driver in the many lectures she gives.
In her lectures, Bruria talks about Desi's joy and choice in life and giving from the loss.
"After these lectures I get a lot of responses and letters. A girl wrote to me that since her mother passed away, the family sank sadly. 'After your lecture I decided to change my mind and do things of joy. You changed my life in an hour and a half' - she wrote to me."
Pini: "This is also what families tell me after I meet them in a mourning home and accompany them, if I am allowed to defend myself."
"You don't really have to defend yourself," Bruria reassures, "there's no arguing about that."
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