"So, Stiglitz, they got you good, eh? The whole driveshaft, while wearing flip flops at that". "Yes," he answers, "Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear catches you from behind". I haven't yet had this conversation with Aviv, but one day maybe we'll sit in the big pub in the sky with a pint of Goldstar. There are some others from Nir Oz waiting for us there too.
What else is there to say about Aviv? A lot of friends have poured a lot of good words out this week, ever since we were notified of the return of his body from Gaza. When someone dies, everyone always only shares the good things about them, but in this case Aviv only had a positive side. This sea of words can be condensed into one: "creator" – in all senses of the word.
A Kibbutznik through and through, farmer, mechanic, artist and craftsman in every field that you can imagine. Whether you needed an omelette for breakfast or to fix a combine harvester, Aviv turned everything into a fine craft. Organize a gig in the kibbutz garage? Easy, and then joke with the band backstage, when "backstage" is a tractor hitched to a plow (remind me to tell you about that time when Dani Litani or Ehud Banai arrived onstage via the nuts and bolts storage in the metalsmith workshop). Need a loving teacher to ignite creativity in the kids? With pleasure. Need something – anything – fixed? He's got it sorted. Need to build that invention that we dreamed up to sort out that one task in the field or for the volleyball club? It'll be ready before your 10 a.m. coffee break. Everything always done with style and his little twist, accompanied by a wink and a laugh. Everything always done with love and with his whole heart, accompanied by a sprinkle of a curse in Russian or broken German.
But at the end of the day, Aviv's greatest creation was always a good atmosphere. He had a special way of making everyone around him feel comfortable, feel that everything would be OK, and there'd be fun and jokes along the way. Don't worry, take it easy, we'll even have time for a beer when we're done. A people-person of the type that they don't make anymore, a cliche as perfect as it sounds. Well, he grew up in Nir Oz after all. I can't even count the times I woke him up in the middle of the night because we did some idiotic thing while harvesting and we broke the shlongmeister on the combine harvester. He'd jump out of bed while mumbling some joke, get into work clothes and land directly from a dream about some bike ride in India straight into crawling inside a greasy tractor to fix in seconds what we'd been trying to solve for hours.
And on that Saturday morning, too, he jumped out of bed directly from a dream straight into a nightmare. This time with a bulletproof vest, helmet and gun, not greasy overalls and a wrench. I don't know what exactly happened to him in those final moments that morning, and what he managed to do alongside his team in the civilian guard. I can only imagine. They were the last line of defense for Nir Oz, and according to all the reports I've seen, after they fell the gates of hell opened, because there was no one left to fight. It was the moment that the gunshots stopped, because there was no one left to shoot, and so began the mass kidnapping of defenseless families, those who became hostages.
So, I allow myself to imagine that he was with friends. That they watched each other's backs. Maybe, also, from inside that hell of being an inadequately armed few in the face of hundreds of heavily armed and well-prepared terrorists, at the beginning of the end that dawned on them with every bullet shrieking overhead or grenade exploding at their feet and leaving not much room for hope, they still managed a dark joke or two. I imagine, also, a barrage of curses in a variety of languages, those that you can only let loose with good friends and it's best not to have them in writing. Curses for the Gazans, for Hamas, for sh**tyluck, for the army that was supposed to back them up within minutes, for the fact that after two and a half hours there was still not one word…and maybe they also had some curses for God, our supposed savior, and also the sun because they'd run out of things to curse. I'm glad they don't know what has happened since.
It was a great honor to be able to create with Aviv. Even though for the most part I was the one who broke the stuff that he then had to fix – a role in which I take great pride – we also knew how to create together. Amongst the mechanical creations destined for agricultural purposes were abstract statutes made from discarded metal, decorating the rusty landscape of the tractor storage. On old scraps of equipment he'd paint delicate paintings: he'd ask me for photos of the fields and the tractors at work, and reimagine them with brushstrokes on the chisels of ploughs and digger blades. As beautiful as they were simple. We shared a love of the visual beauty of agricultural work, and for that I will be forever grateful. What else is there to say? Aviv Atzili. Creator, father, partner, and a friend for life. I am full of envy for the way you walked the paths of life with the calm and tranquility of a man sure of his way and surrounded by friends and family. In these deeply turbulent times, I wish for everyone to be a bit more like Aviv. To live truthfully, with love and creativity. Brothers in arms when necessary, but using force with restraint. Partners in sowing and building, and exploring the beauty and value of life in all its forms. We are still searching for a heart of gold to compare to yours. Dear Aviv, you were always the best of us, and that's what she, and everyone else, said.
