Two decades have passed since the assassination Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but this year it is harder than ever to deal with the memory of that dreadful day, the image of the man and what our future could have been like if he had not been murdered. The Israeli Scouts memorial ceremony for Rabin, had both me and my 10-year-old daughter, dressed in her girl scout's uniform -- a momentary glimpse of what she would look like in a military uniform -- in tears, which I tried in vain to hold back. Yes, this year it was harder than ever. Perhaps it is the fact that it is the 20-year mark, a round number that underscores how much time had passed. The memory of Rabin's absence has taken over the country, especially during these trying times of fear, sadness and uncertainty. Perhaps it is because my children's questions are left unanswered. Ahead of the annual commemoration of Rabin's assassination in my children's schools, I pulled out a plastic folder I have been keeping since that day. I have no idea where my letters and photos from that period are, but I have been zealously guarding this folder, and I always know exactly where it is. The day after the assassination, still overwhelmed and sobbing, I obsessively collected the front pages of all the newspapers, as if I had to preserve the pages of our country's history for my future children's sake; so that they could learn, even a little, about the tragedy that has befallen us. "On the morning of Nov. 5, 1995 I woke up to a different Israel, and I don't understand how this could have happened to us," I wrote on a white sticker I had placed on the folder that binds every word and photo published during the week following the murder. Now, it seems, the time has come to open it. My 10-year-old daughter is old enough to understand the meaning of that day, as her reality is saturated with wars and fear, and my 6-year-old daughter is wise beyond her years thanks to her older siblings. We all sat together on the carpet and spread out the old newspapers. The pages have turned yellow, and carry that "old" smell, but the tint of the page cannot obscure the bold, black headlines that have etched the words "Rabin assassinated" into our souls 20 years ago. My youngest read the headlines, and for a moment I regretted showing them to her. I keep forgetting that I am raising her among the long-suffering people of Israel, and therefore she has already attended more than a few Holocaust Remembrance and Memorial Day services. She is a 6-years-old Israeli and all too familiar with the semantics of loss. "Why hadn't the guards checked his bag? You get your bag checked at the mall all the time mommy," she asked, baffled. "He [Rabin] was our prime minister, why wasn't anybody guarding him-" She continued with "He [Yigal Amir] is never getting out of prison, right-" This was the first time we have talked at length about the kind of leader Rabin was, his contribution to our country, his dreams and his wife, Leah, who died 15 year ago, and devoted herself to the welfare of autistic children. I told them about how I had missed the opportunity to personally thank her for the important infrastructure she had put in place for children like their older autistic brother. "He looks like a good, strong man," my 10-year-old daughter said. "He just wanted peace; that's not too much to ask for," she added. This year the memory seems harder than ever, especially when your daughter asks you, "How could this have happened to us-" Twenty years, a mother and her daughters, one question, no answers.
