Dear Shachar,

I hope it’s okay that I’m still addressing you directly,I just can’t imagine any other way. It’s been over a year now since you’ve died and I wrote something on the last day of your Shiva, re-reading it now I could see that I was scattered and overflowing with emotions and love. A lot of it seems naive and even weird to re-read but I believe that it was authentic and true and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I still don’t understand how it could’ve happened to you, Shahar. Waking up that morning and finding out over WhatsApp messages that you had died seems surreal to this moment, imagining how it happened seems even more incomprehensible. Part of me is so afraid of writing something down because I don’t know how to do you justice but being true to myself and authentic the way that you were is probably my best tribute to your soul. 

My dearest Shahar, even over a year later my heart explodes just thinking of you. You’re in every joke, in every Korkinet ride, in every hunch of your shoulder and in every Kapara. You’re actually just everywhere and there’s no other way to describe it. There’s not one day that you don’t cross my mind for whatever reason. Whether it’s a memory of us together or a simple reminder of something you did or liked.

I know people were often confused by our friendship, but I believe that our friendship was clear from the beginning and that’s why we were so close. Funny thing being I don’t think we realized we’d become good friends until it happened. Our first interaction was how I “discovered” you. I wasn’t even at the channel for 6 months and I was in the control room as an associate producer. Not even a producer yet! I told the CG to put the name up of whomever it was that we were interviewing that day. You turned around at me and yelled at me! So I sat there behind you, silently right after, half biting my lips and trying to understand what I'd done wrong. So you turned around again, swirling on your director’s chair, looked at me straight in my face and explained to me, constructively, why it was your job and not mine. And maybe it was that moment that we became twin spirits somehow. We connected so fast and to this day we were laughing at how we became friends. 

When it was the one month anniversary of your death and the unveiling of your tomb, little foreign me had no idea that the cemetery provides stones to leave on the tomb. I had been to a Jewish cemetery before but when I had been in the US, we needed to bring our own stones. So the Saturday before the unveiling of your tomb I went for a walk to go find something to leave on your tomb whether it would be a shell on the beach, a nice stone, I just wanted to find something. So I went on a walk, it was rainy and I didn’t honestly know where to go. Eventually I stumbled on these white rocks and though they were very big, I thought “this is perfect, this should do it.” Monday November 23rd came around and I remember I woke up that morning with a shooting pain in the back of my neck to my shoulder and could barely move my neck all day. I ignored it and dressed up in black and proudly prepared my rock to bring to your grave. I went to meet Roni and we drove all the way to the cemetery preparing for what would be another tough day of mourning.

I remember still crying so much and we were all there still crying so much and all there for each other. The prayers started to cease and family and close friends started coming to your tomb and leaving a stone each. As I got closer, my eyes swollen from tears and my nose running from crying under a snotty mask, I started to realize that I did not need to bring my own stone. I realized that the cemetery provides you with the stones to leave on the grave. But here I was, with this piece of white marble in my bag, as big as my heart, weighing me with my aching neck and back. I hesitated to take it out because it was so HUGE compared to the other stones but I knew I’d feel guilty if I didn’t. So in the next second, I picked it out of my bag, walked to your grave as bravely as I could and placed it on your tomb and I couldn’t stop sobbing. I sobbed like a baby and didn’t know I still had that many tears to cry still for you. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

And then my next realization came. 

“fuck this is hilarious, Shachar is laughing so hard at me right now”. Here I was, thinking I was cute for thinking ahead when actually I was carrying a marble quarry on my back that whole morning. I remember telling the story to my mother later and crying and laughing to her how ridiculous I felt and how much of a foreigner I still am but I knew you’d be laughing at and with me. 

Thank you Shachar for being the best friend I could ever ask for, thank you Shachar for being there, for listening, for choosing me as your friend when you needed to cry or for letting me cry on your shoulder. Thank you for including me with your childhood best friends, thank you for the endless rides home on the korkinet, the days we’d go to the beach together, the music, your soul, your spirit, the singing, the list is endless. Thank you for being so authentic and true and allowing us to be part of your world and universe filled with virtue and life. 

Thank you for all the tears and all the laughter, oh so much laughter. 

Thank you thank you thank you my love. I’ll never forget you. I love you.