The Kyle Strang Trip to Israel & Palestine: I Hope We Did It Big Enough

Our last moments in Israel, we spent on the beach in Tel Aviv. It was a beautiful, clear, crisp, sunny day, just barely warm enough for a couple of bathing suits to appear, a couple of t-shirts to come off. For the first couple hours we relaxed in the sand, played a little but not too vigorously, talked, and ate a picnic lunch of all our now-favorite Israeli/Palestinian treats. Bamba. Lots of Bamba. It was perhaps our first un-rushed moment, a happy, fulfilled moment, but also thick with the underlying seriousness and anticipation of the moment ahead. We were there to reflect on what this trip has meant to us, to commemorate the ending of this profound experience that has changed us, that w

e will never forget. We were there to perform the third and final Memorial for Kyle. The first, The Funeral at Tem

ple Emanu-El in San Francisco, filled with shock and love and chaos and a bleeding, raging, crying sky, represented Kyle’s past, his brief timeline, his Jewish heritage. The second, The CAS Memorial in the Little Theater at Berkeley High, fille

d with poignant, open-hearted narratives from friends, teachers and family, painted a portrait of the present that Kyle was living, of all that was important to him, at the moment of his death. The third, The Tel Aviv Memorial, private, intimate, naked, unsc

ripted would be the proxy for the future that Kyle didn’t get, the piece of his future that these amazing, loving, loyal young people chose to live for him.

We dug a hole in the beach, a meter deep, one handful at a time. We gath

ered a few steps away at our picnic site, and sat in a circle under our little wood gazebo on the beach. Out of backpacks and bags came small treasures that each person had brought to leave here for Kyle. Hasmig brought out the bracelets she designed and had made by the Armenian jeweler in Jerusalem. We each cut off the yarn appreciation bracelets we had wrapped and tied around each other’s wrists months ago at the closing ceremony of our first retreat with Stephen and Jamie. That day had ended with me engulfed at the center of a long, spiraling group hug that renewed my courage and strength. On the beach, we helped each other to solemnly fastened onto our wrists the new silver clasp on the leather thong adorned with silver Hebrew letters for Chai or “life,” the root word of Kyle’s Hebrew name, Chaim.

The circle grew quiet. Sarah from the CAS Class of 2010, now living in Tel Aviv had joined us. She and Max spoke for a few minutes about their experiences in Israel over the last year. Quiet again. At that first retreat, each person had brought an artifact to share that represented why we had chosen to participate in this program. It had been a long evening, filled up with tears, stories, anguish and hope that together we could soften some of the

pain. On the beach in Tel Aviv, we went around our circle again. Each person described what they brought to leave for Kyle:

a rose from Beebe

the baseball that he hit for his first homerun from Leib

a DVD with the film she made for Kyle from Siena

a batting practice baseball he had pitched many times to Kyle from Craig

a wallet from Ben

a coin and a wish of peace for both Kyle and Craig from Alex

a glass heart given to her by Kyle’s aunt from Hasmig

a friendship bracelet from Callie

a stone from the spot where her father's ashes are spread from Gemma

a poem composed and bravely read from Marina

a baseball card given to him by Kyle from Evan

a tear-stained handwritten note from Gracie

spoken tributes from Eli and Nick

Each person spoke a little about what the trip meant to them, what they want to bring home from it, and something about Kyle. Then we each said an appreciation for someone in the group. When everyone had finished, we got up and re-circled our Memorial Pit. We tossed in our yarn bracelets. One at a time, we each tossed our offering into that hole. We lit some ceremonial cigars in honor of Kyle’s experiments with contraband, tossed them in, too, and then together, we used our bare feet to gently push sand to the center, covering the hole. We hugged on top of it, and wondered, would tide ever reach this high.