*cross posted from Assoluta Tranquillita*

Dear Gilad

by Paula R. Stern
Published: 08/29/10, 11:51 AM

I'm sorry, Gilad - for the hypocrisy of the nations of the world, who are cowards enough to abandon a 19-year-old boy and sit in silence as the years pass.

Dear Gilad,

Today was your 24th birthday. A day you should have spent with your family.

Today was also my husband's birthday. Yesterday, my youngest two children wrote their father letters and when he left for the synagogue, we slipped the letters under the plastic lining of the table so that as he ate his dinner with his family, letters of love and good wishes surrounded him.

This afternoon, we gave him presents and birthday cake and best wishes for a happy and wonderful birthday. He starts this new year as he spent his last one - together with his family, surrounded by his sons and daughters, having built a life, a home, here in his land.

Today, Gilad, you weren't home. Your friends, those who served with you, have mostly left the army, as you probably would have if you had not been taken that fateful day in 2006. It has been more than 1,525 days since you have been taken. Your family waits for you, living in some strange limbo that is almost as bad as death, and so much worse than any other nightmare one could imagine.

The only birthday wish I can give you is that this be your last birthday in Gaza and that soon, very soon, you will be free to dream and fulfill all life should be offering you.

Read the rest here.