On this Memorial Day, as every year, Diana and Michael (Misha) Golenshin will attend the memorial service at the Experimental School in Jerusalem, and from there to the military cemetery on Mount Herzl.
Their 13-year-old daughter Kira is already used to this "routine" of a bereaved family.
When they enter the cemetery she will approach the tombstone bearing the name so similar to her name - Kirill, the brother she has never met.
The Golenshin family immigrated to Israel from the former USSR in the great wave of immigration in the early 1990s. "Kiriusha, our golden boy, was then 6 years old," recalls mother Diana.
Instead we devoted ourselves to memorizing a new language, to getting to know a new country, which was still unfamiliar to us but already so beloved, and to which we carried all our hopes.
"Everything was normal - job searches, a rented apartment, then buying our own apartment - as with everyone."
But Kirill was much more than a normal child.
Perhaps the "blame" is in the family, which always guided him to strive for the highest, and perhaps also in the experimental school, which not only teaches his students different sciences but also educates them to think independently, to be strong, confident and visionary.
"For 12 years of school we did not hear from the teachers a comment or complaint about Kirill," says his mother, "Actually, once, I no longer remember in which class, the phone rang and the polite voice on the other end of the line introduced himself as the geography teacher. "Kirill was very interesting and meaningful. But the language ... the language was too complex and lyrical. After all, it's just geography ... I wished myself then to hear many more such 'reviews'."
"The life we had with Kirill we left there."
Diana Golenshin, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Kirill excelled not only in choosing the words for works in geography, and the ambitious plans he devised for the distant future were concentrated on law studies at the university.
After graduating from high school, he moved to the Straits in the north of the country to devote one year to studying at the College of Responsibility and Social Leadership and to prepare himself for a position in an elite unit in the IDF.
"Why elite units?", Recalls Diana, "because Dad said: if already combat service, then let it be the best, a demanding place that is difficult to get.
"After a year on the track, he moved at his request to the Sting unit, the dog unit, where he could combine his great love for dogs with the dream of participating in operational activities, and enjoyed every moment."
"I wanted to run away, not to hear"
As soon as they reached the sting, Kirill received the dog Mako and successfully went through a difficult and challenging trajectory that lasted about half a year of training, at the end of which he was certified as a fighter in the unit.
"He and Mako were perfect together," Diana recalls with a smile, adding that during hours of rest, between operational employment, training with Mako and military courses, Kirill sought to take advantage of every moment and lived as if there was no tomorrow: "He could not describe his life without books and music." Books and records and bought countless CDs, which I listen to today with great pleasure. He had good taste in everything - and that was a great blessing.
Diana and Misha knew that their son was aiming for an officers' course, while in the meantime he continued in regular service.
One day he called his mother and said, "Mom, I will not be available for a few days. We are traveling, pass me Dad."
When Diana handed the phone to her husband, the thought crossed her mind that it was strange.
What kind of trip is this?
It then turns out that Kirill and his father agreed to use a code word so as not to tell her about promotions and not to worry her.
"But I realized for myself that something was happening. I was scared for the first time in my life and even texted Kirill - Good luck !!! Love you !!! Waiting 4 you !!!. I could not imagine that I would never hear my son's voice again ... I to this day I do not know if he received my message then, or if it was no longer enough. "
Wednesday, 1.11.2006, Diana and Misha will never be forgotten.
They then lived in Moshav Shekef, and Diana worked as a medical secretary at a health fund.
As every day she treated doctors' requests, answered phone calls, talked to patients.
"Suddenly I saw my husband," she recalls, "he appeared at the doorstep and walked slowly towards me. Something in his face, even in the color of his face, in his eyes, made me roll back in a chair. I leaned against the closet or the wall behind me, I no longer remember I did not want him to approach, I was afraid he would start talking and I wanted to run away, so as not to hear.
"Misha came closer and closer to me, and suddenly, unexpectedly, he fell to his knees and clung to my feet. And I, in a voice that seemed to not belong to me at all, that I heard him as if I were watching from the sidelines, without believing the words I said, I asked him: 'Is he injured?'
"I already knew the answer, and when I heard it, I howled in an inhuman voice. Everything that happened seemed to be happening to me, but outside of me."
Like sinking in a quagmire
A few hours before the heartbreaking spectacle at the HMO, Sergeant Kirill Golenshin fell as a hero in an IDF raid on Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, as part of Operation Clouds of Autumn, designed to locate terrorist infrastructure and hit rocket launchers at western Negev settlements. In breaking into one of the houses, terrorists were encountered, and during the exchange of fire he was mortally wounded and died of his wounds.
"Our lives just ended," Diana explains, "those lives we had until that awful day stayed somewhere, in the past. They stayed where Kirill was the center of my universe, and I was happy that that was how they were. They stayed where I would drive Kirill to base and back home. , To his medic course, to friends. They ended up where I appreciated our infrequent mental conversations so much, where I loved my grown child so much, where I was proud of him, because he is so real, the best in the world. Bo, because he was the best thing we had with Misha, our own sequel. "
At the end of the terrible day, the little family, or what is left of it, returns home to reflect.
Journalists were waiting near the house.
Misha talked to them, and Diana just ran into the house.
She does not remember much of the days that followed, just knows that many people came to them - their friends, co-workers, patients, and of course Kirill's friends.
Kirill's friends in the corner who cultivated in his honor in a spring near Moshav Mata,
"Actually, they did not come, they just did not leave us," notes Diana, "they actually lived in our backyard, and just exchanged with his friends from the mechina in the strait. To talk to them I had to muster the strength to get out of bed, even though all I wanted to do was "Lie down, think only of him, look at the wall and howl. They helped me survive. In their constant presence they did not allow me to sink into bad thoughts, which filled my dormant mind like a sticky jelly. These lovely young guys got me out of this swamp."
Years after the tragedy, it is clear that Diana and Misha are overwhelmed with gratitude and not bitterness.
Full of gratitude to familiar and unfamiliar people, near and far, who wrapped them in love and became a support that did not let them collapse: "Our swearing will never be erased from my memory thanks to this attitude of different people, who were strangers but became our relatives. They helped me persevere without going crazy. Cry with me and warm me with their hugs without any unnecessary words.They devoted a lot of thought to every short sentence, as if talking to a soft child who could be easily hurt.
"There were also moshavniks who lived next door to us for a short time, without us knowing their names and we would just say hello to them. They suddenly became angels from another world. They set up on the grass in front of our house a tent with a table, which was always full of goodies. They filled our fridge and "The same table on the grass. They sat with us and fed me almost with a spoon, because I could not eat even a crumb."
New life in November
And throughout the difficult period, Kirill's friends from the military service accompanied the Golenshin family non-stop.
"Kirill Team" they called themselves.
Diana says that despite the time that has passed, it has not stopped: "They do not leave us. They come to visit. Call and tell news of their lives, are interested in our safety. They invite us to weddings, meet with us at cemeteries and Kirill's birthdays. Maayan in his honor near Moshav Mata - we visit the place every year for Kirill's birthday. They make a fire, roast meat and vegetables in Poike, make great coffee, and we talk until nightfall and sing songs to the guitar sounds. this.
"At first I felt they would come to Kirill because they missed him very much and were looking for his presence. Now the situation is different. They are coming to us. These guys who have turned 35 - this is the best thing there is in our country. They are the golden people of Israel. When I look at them, I can answer my questions that have so far remained unanswered. "
Diana admits that after Kirill's fall she wanted to erase November from her life, which had previously been her favorite month.
But two years later, by an impossible fate, on November 3, a little baby girl was born to her, named Kira: "I became a mother at the age of 45. Who could believe it! We started with her from scratch, and every day this magical girl spreads light around her. - It's just inconceivable happiness! "
Diana says that Kira connected with all the friends of her big brother, who did not get to see her.
They are protective of her and are always interested in her well-being.
"And she's also asking more and more questions about Kirill, and I have more and more answers. I'm a person who always looks at the half full glass. Immigrating to Israel - that was my choice. Living in this country with all its pros and cons - it's my choice. It's my country and pleasant I live here. I love Israel. I will never agree with anyone who thinks Kirill was killed in vain. Kirill lives and continues to live a wonderful life. I return - continue to live, because every person lives as long as they remember the same life. "Kirill had a very beautiful life.
He enjoyed everything he did, loved life, and my great happiness is that I never bothered him to be who he was, I always supported him.
"When Kirill came to me and asked that as a single child I sign a consent form for service in a combat unit, I jokingly asked him: What if I do not sign? He replied that in such a case he would fill out a lone soldier form. "You can not just take, you also have to know how to give," he would say. And he really gave. We all gave. "
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