Hersh Goldberg-Polin's Grieving Mother Recounts 332 Days Of Torment At Slain Hostage's Funeral

I have had a lot of time during the past 332 days to think about my sweet boy Hersh and one thing I keep thinking about is how out of all of the mothers in the whole entire world God chose to give HS to me what must I have done in a past life to deserve such a beautiful gift it must have been glorious her and I once watched some documentaries a couple years ago together about young people who had died and he commented how come everyone who dies young is always said to be the funniest the smartest the greatest the handsomest why doesn't anyone ever say I liked Max but you know what he was pretty stupid and his sense of humor was off and he had bad breath I am honest and I say it's not that hirs was perfect but he was the perfect son for me and I am so grateful to God and I want to do hakarat and thank God right now in front of all of you for giving me this magnificent present of my hir for 23 years I was privileged to have the most stunning honor to be hersh's Mama I'll take it and say thank you I just wish it had been for longer H for all these months I've been in such torment and worry about you for every single millisecond of every single day it was such a specific type of misery that I have never experienced before I tried hard to suppress the missing you part because that I was convinced would break me so I spent 330 days terrified scared worrying and frightened it closed my throat and made my soul throb with third degree burns part of what is so deeply crushing and confusing for all of us is that a strange thing happened along this maab path upon which our family found itself traveling for the last 332 days amidst the inexplicable agony Terror anguish desperation and fear we became absolutely certain that you were coming home to us alive but it was not to be now I no longer have to worry about you I know you are no longer in danger you are with beautiful honor he will show you around you will hopefully meet my grandparents who will adore you and you will start to play chess with Papa Stan but now my worry shifts to us D leby or Le and me how do we live the rest of our life without you I pray that your death will be a turning point in this horrible situation in which we are all entangled I take such comfort knowing you were with carmel Orie Eden elog and Alex from what I have been told told they each were delightful in very different ways and I think that is how the six of you managed to stay alive in unimaginable circumstances for so very long you each and every single one of you did every single thing right to survive 329 days in what I'm pretty sure can only be described as hell I send each of the family's my deepest sympathies for what we are all going through and for the ing feeling that we all could not save them I think we all did every single thing we could the hope that perhaps a deal was near was so authentic it was crunchy it tasted close but it was not to be so those beautiful six survived together and those beautiful six died together and now they will be remembered together forever her like most parents dada and I would often talk about who you would become what you would be like when you grew up what you would do what you would look like what kind of parent you would be but now you will forever be our beautiful boy you will stay the energetic kind patient curious funny irreverent pensive forever handsome forever young forever my sweet boy you squeezed into your young life a lot of experience a lot of EXP experiences and that gives me relief and comfort you made True deep friendships you traveled each summer and started to explore the world you worked you learned you read you taught you served you listened you even fell in love and had a true deep relationship for more than two years and you shared the excitement of that new experience with us you Charmed everyone you ever talked to young or old you promoted Justice and peace in a way that only a young pure wide eyed idealist can you never raised your voice to me in your life you treated me respectfully always even when you chose a different path when you wrote to us from the bomb shelter you had just seen honor get killed you had lost your arm and you thought you were dying and you wrote to us I'm sorry because you knew how crushing it would be for us to lose you so you fought to stay alive and now you are gone at this time I ask your forgiveness If Ever I was impatient or insensitive to you during your life or neglected you in some way I deeply and sincerely request your forgiveness hirs if there was something we could have done to save you and we didn't think of it i' beg your forgiveness we tried so very hard so deeply and desperately I'm sorry now my her I ask for your help as we transform Our Hope into grief and this new unknown brand of pain I beg of you hsh please do what you can to have your light shine down on me Dada Ley and Ori help shower us with healing and resilience help us to rise again I know it will take a long time but please may God bless us that one day One Fine Day D leby orley and I will hear laughter and we'll turn around and see it's us and that we're okay you will always be with us as a force of love and vitality you will become our superpower to Dalia Matt and Richard who came to be with us every single day during this Odyssey of torture there will never be enough words to express my gratitude to each one of of you and I want to say now a sincere and most heartfelt thank you to the countless people in this entire extended Community who have held us cared for us prayed for us cooked for us and carried us when we could not stand up I am so thankful to you and I apologize deeply but we're going to now need continued help to get through this sickening new chapter to and I'm so sorry to ask because you've we have given you nothing and you have already given us profoundly and completely for 11 months but I beg of you all please don't leave us now okay sweet boy go now on your journey I hope it's as good as the trips you dreamed about because finally my sweet boy finally finally finally finally you're free I will love you and I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life but you're right here I know you're right here I just have to teach myself how to feel you in a different way and hsh there's one last thing I need you to do for us now I need you to help us stay strong and I need you to help us survive