"For me every day is a memorial day, I don't need a specific day of the year because every day Ya'ir is with me". Moria Ashkenazi lost her husband Ya'ir, aged just 36, last summer while he was serving in his reserve unit during the conflict in Gaza. Ya'ir, a devoted Maccabi Tel Aviv fan, also left behind three children. Now, on the day Israel will be honouring their war dead in ceremonies throughout the country, Moria tells her own personal story about a husband, a father and a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan who devoted his entire life to the country he loved so much.
"For me the feelings I had in those first days haven't changed in the days and the months that have passed since then. The grief is the same grief, the pain is the same pain. Every day I ask myself when, if ever, these tears will stop, if I will ever have the feeling that, finally, it's over. I gaze at pictures of us from the past, all dressed up, or not, and I know it's over. It simply doesn't make any sense. Life goes on but still it doesn't make any sense. The longing will always be stronger than the memory".
This is the first time Moria will be commemorating Memorial Day without Ya'ir, as one of Israel's many war widows. On the television there are pictures of Ya'ir with Moria, with friends and of course, with his children, who together with Moria, were the love of his life. And it was because of their father that the children, too, became great Maccabi fans, Moria tells us. "All their clothes, their rooms, every colour in fact had to be yellow and blue. My older son Yoel, he's more of a basketball fan. The little one, Amir, he loves football. There's a story Ya'ir always loved to tell, how when Yoel was born he wheeled the baby along the hospital corridors in his carrycot, with the yellow rays of the sun beaming through the slits in the venetian blinds, when suddenly from one of the rooms he heard the tune "Yellow" from the British pop group Coldplay. I remember him telling me, 'You're here, Yoel is born and I hear that song by Coldplay, which makes me think of Maccabi. It simply doesn't get any better'. He was so happy. I'm so frightened that I don't want the children to get used to him being gone, so they won't ever forget their father. I do whatever I can to help them remember but you see that they're starting to forget, and for me that's the saddest part of all. It's not fair because he was such a caring father, it's not fair to him that they should forget him. He never missed a nursery school birthday party, even when the kids were tiny. He wanted to be with them as much as possible".
Ya'ir and Moria's story goes back to their childhood. Moria's grandmother lived near Ya'ir's parents. The two families became friends, as did the little Ya'ir and Moria. With the years the two lost touch until, on a chance visit by Moria to Eilat, she ran into Ya'ir once again, who had just returned from a trip to Thailand and was working In Israel's most southern city. "On the day before I left, my mum told me Ya'ir was there and that I should drop by to say hello. To tell you the truth, I felt a bit awkward because we hadn't seen one another in such a long time, but my mum persuaded me. So I went and we met and in the end we exchanged telephone numbers. Since that day I haven't forgotten his number for a moment. The same number he called from the last time we spoke. He was trying to reassure me. The night before we had talked and he had had these feelings of foreboding, just as I had had the whole week. That next day he wanted to call to reassure me. He told me he felt like he was at a picnic, that he'd been showering regularly, in the field, that the sun was shining, that he had had supper and enjoyed it. It was the kind of optimism he conveyed to all of us all his life. Ya'ir was always direct, honest to a fault and very good at analysing things in a way that was all his own. In his work, too, he was amazing that way. He was always successful, it never ceased to amaze me. I'll always miss being able to come to him with a problem knowing that I'd always get the best and most honest answer possible".
The late Ya'ir never even tried to hide his love for Maccabi. "He loved Maccabi so much. Even his beloved bicycle was yellow, his cycling kit was yellow. All his mates were Maccabi Haifa fans because they all grew up up north. I once asked him why he wasn't a Haifa fan himself and he said you don't change allegiances and that 'Maccabi Tel Aviv is in my soul'. Twice he took me to matches. He tried to infuse me with the same passion for Maccabi and to explain to me why Maccabi was so special, but it never really worked", Moria tells us with a smile. He was always talking about the title (double) of '77. You wouldn't believe what an expert he was on Maccabi history. I remember he once told me about Avi Cohen and some of the matches from that year. He was always telling me he was waiting for another season like '76/'77".
Hundreds of people came to the Ashkenazi home during the family's mourning period. Neighbours that helped out in their time of need, friends, colleagues, politicians from the entire political spectrum, even Benny Gantz, the commander in chief of the Israel Defence Forces. Moria kept a remembrance book and all of them wrote something in it. As a member of the first class to have received a scholarship from the Friends of the Israel Defence Forces, Ya'ir was scheduled, sometime in 2014, to deliver lectures in America. Now Moria will go in his place, to show the films and to tell Ya'ir's story. "It's a way for me to continue his work and the good things he always tried to do in this world. When we returned from the hospital with our youngest, Ya'ara, just before we entered the house, he suddenly stopped me and said he had a few things to tell me before we went inside. He wanted me to know how happy he was, and how frightened he was that that might change because he was the happiest man alive, that he hoped I felt the same way. Maybe some things really are just too good to be true".
