I’m sitting here on the day of Amir’s yahrzeit holding a squirmy little girl named after him. Mira is now 10 months, 21 lbs, and 29 inches. We’ve spent the afternoon trying to find old emails from Amir and trying to remember old stories that I can share. The stories that I remember generally involve a subset of the 5 of us (Amir, Jon, Allon, Mo and I) playing some (innocent or not so) prank followed by extreme remorse and atonement on Amir’s part and no remorse from us. One story I can share is about that photograph of Amir and I, back-to-back, from Moshava in the summer of 1990. Amir and I were in the same bunk for August and we became friends very quickly, setting off fireworks and smokebombs together in the empty bunks near the lake. My memory is a bit fuzzy on this story, but I think what happened was that Amir and I showed up dressed inappropriately (not wearing the required dress pants and white shirt) for the before-shabbas camp-wide gathering by the flagpole, and we were sent back to change. We changed into our “tough guy” clothes (leather jacket, baseball cap worn backwards, shorts and t-shirts) and came back. They made us stand in the middle of the giant “Chet” as punishment so we defied them again by standing back-to-back. David Honig took that photo so maybe he remembers the story better or differently. Anyway we felt no remorse for that one. I love that photo because it marked the beginning of a long friendship where we took a lot of philosophical (and sophomoric) stands together. These days the stand I’m taking with Amir is trying to better our country’s educational system. When I get frustrated with teaching I remember that just like that day in Moshava – Amir has my back.
