You’re not getting my emails. I know. I got one of those automatic notices. But I’m going to keep writing you anyway. Okay? I can’t really explain it. I feel I need to, even if you won’t read it. Actually, maybe because you won’t read it. I know it’s silly. Trust me, I know, but since I saw Miriam’s obituary, I’ve been having all these thoughts but no one to share them with. It’s pathetic, I know, but what can I say, it’s the truth. Who am I going to tell? The Indians? The twenty-year-old backpackers? The Chabad rabbi who visits our offices every Monday and Thursday and still doesn’t understand how a mother can leave everything behind and move to India on her own?

So I’ll write you. Just a little. That’s my biggest flaw anyway, right? That I always put myself first. You said it yourself the last time we spoke on the phone. You said that the day I boarded the plane you realized I’d always put myself first. That you had always suspected it, but that my going to India proved it once and for all. Believe me, had I known that three months later you would stop answering my calls, I would never even have considered hanging up.

I tried calling you, as I’m sure you know. Five times this past week alone. You didn’t answer. Not assigning blame, just stating a fact. Surprisingly, your father did pick up. Actually, it’s not surprising at all. Pretending everything’s fine is practically his expertise. He told me Miriam fell in the shower. Strange, isn’t it? How a person can fall in the shower, and in a split second it’s all over. Just like that. He also told me your grandpa enlisted in that old people’s combat unit (is it actually called the geriatric platoon?? Has to be a joke.). Listen, I’m the last person who can criticize the country, but this sounds a bit wacky … What exactly are they going to do with them? Who are they going to fight? Hamas? Hezbollah? Your father didn’t explain. He never does. He wouldn’t talk about the debts either. I tried talking to him, believe me I tried. He probably doesn’t talk to you about it either. Or maybe he even told you it had been resolved. Sounds like him. What can I tell you, Yuli, I wish he’d confide in you, just a little. Not for your sake, but for his. Secrets rot the soul, it isn’t healthy to live like that.

This is so ridiculous. Writing to no one.

I’m going to stop now.

Best,

Alma Rosenblum,

Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi

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