To Be Remembered Like This

At Yitzhak Rabin's Funeral

Below is the eulogy of Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof, then the 18-year old grand daughter of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the first native-born prime minister in Israel who was assassinated on November 4, 1995.

Excuse me, but I will not discuss peace today. I will talk about my grandfather.

The television has not stopped showing your image, and you seem so alive, and yet you're not. Grandpa, you were the pillar of fire before the camp, and now we're just a camp left alone in the dark, and we're so cold.

I know people are talking about a national tragedy. How can you pacify an entire army and an entire people when we feel such the void that was left? Very few people knew you truly. We can talk about you a lot more, but I feel that people don't know how great the pain is. At least the family and friends that were left at the camp without the pillar of fire know. Grandpa, you were our hero. I want you to know that everything that I did, I always saw you before me.

Your appreciation and your love escorted us through every way and road. You never, ever abandoned us, and here you are, my eternal hero, cold and alone, and there's nothing I can do to save you.

People greater than me have already eulogized you, but no one knows the caress that you placed on my shoulder and the warm hug that you saved only for us and your smile that always told me so much—the same smile that is no longer there.

No one knows the great pain that I'm feeling. The ground was taken from under our feet, and we're trying somehow to make something of this void and have not yet succeeded.

I don't want to separate from you, but now I must. I hope that you rest in peace and remember and miss us, because we down here love you. And I hope that the angels in heaven that escort you now that will protect you, I pray, and that they will protect you well, because you need that kind of care.

We love you always, Grandpa.

 

Source: 1996 Collier’s Year Book.

 

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Thanks to http://neebsuk.wordpress.com for this photo.

Suddenly I thought of how I wanted to be when I grow old:

 

- that bits of childhood will remain not because I am demented

- that I die before I totally degenerate

- that it would not feel so bad even if almost all of my hairs had fallen

- that I don’t loose all the people I love

- that Nature would provide the pleasures of Old Age

- that I would not be cruel to myself cussing about not being able to do anything anymore

- that I would still be inspired, kind, happy, decent

- that I would not be boring, whatever that means

- that I won’t grow old without money

- that I would still be able to remember the days of my youth

- that I would still be in touch

- that they would bear with me more

- that I would not be too absorbed of myself

- and that I would be leaving a legacy