They say time heals all wounds, but some cut so deep they never close.I have lost everyone who mattered — my family, my closest friends.
I was nine when it happened.During a mission, my father, Yujuv, was shot in the chest. People whispered that the bullet was meant for my mother — that someone had leaked their plans.
One of the criminals had been hiding, waiting. When Dad moved in to arrest them, the man stepped out from the shadows and fired.The crack of the gun still echoes in my memory.The bullet hit him square in the heart.
My mother, Richi, didn't cry. Not then. She found the criminals, tortured them after their arrest. Shot them again and again until their bodies couldn't hold the pain anymore.Everyone else called it justice.For her, nothing came back. Nothing changed.
I stayed with my grandparents, crying myself to sleep every night. My stomach always twisted with unease. Sometimes I went numb — too afraid to even name what I felt.
Who could I tell?
My mother was drowning in her own grief, fighting every nerve in her body not to kill those men again in her mind.
She was given medals, salutes, praise. But she never smiled again — not the smile Dad used to see on his tired days, the one that lit up the room. He'd tease her,"Oh my Satan… haven't you fallen again? But again, with my heart?"
Slowly, she shut herself away.Some nights, I heard her calling for him, screaming at a world that would never be fair again.
Years passed.The ground beneath us, already cracked, began to give way.
I came home from school one afternoon to find the family doctor's car outside. That wasn't unusual. But there was also an ambulance. And a black car.
The doctors spoke softly. Treatments weren't helping. Her mind was unraveling.Worse, it was speeding up.
By the time I turned fourteen, Mom resigned from the force. She told people it was her health. We knew the truth: she couldn't function anymore.
Some days she laughed hysterically at nothing, staring into space.Some nights she kept a knife under her pillow.Once, she mistook me for someone else and almost attacked me.If my grandparents hadn't been there to take away every sharp object in the room, I don't know what would've happened.
When her clarity returned, she would beg me to go live with them. She cared — I knew she did — but she was terrified of what she might do.
We made a routine. Meals at night, brought to her room. My phone always charged, emergency numbers saved. I learned to give her painkillers when her body fought itself.
I was fourteen, but I stopped being a child years ago.I wasn't leaving her. She was all I had.