For years, Shira was the baby of the family.   Until she turned 8, when a new (surprise) addition arrived.  Shira’s first reaction?  “Put him back! I want a baby sister.”

While she may have been disappointed that her new sibling wasn’t a girl, she always had a deep curiosity.  When she was almost 2, she enjoyed the first (of her many) trips to Israel.  (She even spent a high school semester in Israel.)   While Shira and her sister were seeing a white sand beach (welcome to Tel Aviv) beach for the first time, Shira had to investigate- she put the sand granules in her mouth… (No, Shira, I won’t ever forget this story.)

When it was just the three of us (Me, Shira, and her older sister Shosh), we traveled around the US. On one such journey, Shira decided to assert her independence. (Oh, wait- Shira always asserts her independence.  But, this time she did so in a most unusual way.) She disappeared into the girl’s room, while we were changing planes in Charlotte.  We were on a trip from Charlottesville to Tampa for our cousin’s bar mitzva. Of course, Shira wanted to go to the bathroom all by herself- because she was a big girl. But, then, Shira also decided to not come out. Not even when her older sister tried to cajole her- she didn’t want us to get to Tampa.

Unfortunately for Shira, her dad was (and still is) just as determined. And, announced loudly to anyone (there were none, thankfully) in the bathroom that I was coming in to get my little girl.   After retrieving Shira, we all managed to  reach our destination on time.

As Shira got older, she also wanted to help in the kitchen. She really was a “big girl” now and big girls could do things, just like her 3 older siblings were doing. So, she was asked to wash the lettuce. Yep! You guessed it…Shira proceeded to use the soap to wash the lettuce. (Of course, given today’s food quality, she may have been prescient and killed/removed all vestiges of those pesky microbes and viri that have been infecting folks around the US.)

Now, as she is much older, Shira has traveled the US. Actually, she’s traveled the globe. And, she still follows the beat of her own drum. (OK, I am sure she also pays attention to Chris’ rumbling, too.)

Happy birthday, Shira Batya… I love you.

And, this day took on an even more special connotation when Shira  attained double digits in her “tree rings”.  Because 26 years ago, Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed an agreement to develop peace in the Mideast.  Where the heretofore terrorist group (Al Fatah, which now has a political arm, the PLO- the Palestinian Liberation Organization) would serve as the initial leadership for an independent nation in the West Bank and Gaza.

It meant things needed to change quickly.   So,  folks like me worked to develop entities to employ both Israelis and Palestinians, employed at facilities near the Green Line (the invisible line denoting the armistice between Israel and Jordan that obtained from 1948 to 1967).

Prime Minister Rabin, and his erstwhile rival-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres-were hopeful that our group could help pull this off.  It was a heady time, where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded them for the Oslo Accord, the promised peace process.  But,  Arafat was unable to develop a political structure to unify the various forces in proto-Palestine, couldn’t provide a corrupt-free entity to deliver a government or remove political (and violent) retribution and bickering, thereby squandering the hope of peace.

And, then a WrongWing Israeli terrorist assassinated Rabin, which killed the chances for peace for 26 years- and still counting.,

I recall the words that Rabin shared on a beach in Chaifa (Haifa)  more than two decades ago.  He explained why he signed the Otto Accord and attempted to develop a peace process, “so I would never have to tell another Israeli mother that her child died fighting in a war”.

I,  too, am still waiting.

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