Written by: Shlomit Kempinski
Edited by: Danielle Bernstein Mazor
Mom and Dad asked their eldest son, "Adidi, why are you so stubborn?" even though they knew nothing would help. Adi Leon enlisted for combat service in Givati and insisted on remaining a soldier, even though he was injured in one of their training sessions. "I’m healthy enough to return to my position in the battalion, in the field," he answered decisively.
Ever since he was little, Adi had proved that he knew how to get what he wanted: he loved to make music and turned the family’s small garden shed into his own private recording studio! He loved to make people happy, and so his home was always full of friends, parties and laughter.
On the evening of Simchat Torah, Adi was hanging out with friends until the early hours. When he heard the sirens, he hurried to pack a bag and set off despite his tiredness. He met his battalion on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where they bravely fought against terrorists and rescued kibbutz residents.
After a few days, when his parents finally managed to reach him in the south and brought him delicious food for Shabbat, Adi recalled with fondness the Shabbat meals at his grandparents' home and surprised them with a call. His grandparents were so excited to receive a phone call from their eldest grandson during a war and to hear the words "Saba, make Kiddush for me!"
Adi and his friends continued to fight, entering Gaza to defeat Hamas once and for all. But while they sat together in the namer armored vehicle, the terrorists fired a missile at them and hit. Adi and ten other soldiers who fought alongside him were killed.
"To be read after my death," he wrote on the notebook found in his bag. Adi had decided to leave a letter, in case he didn't return from the war and he wrote individually, specially dedicated words, to his friends, parents, and sisters, Zohar and Ori. For his beloved little sister Oriki he even drew a cat, to make her happy. On the last page he wrote: "I'm going into this war knowing that it’s not certain I will return, but I believe wholeheartedly in what I'm doing. We have no other country, and now it's my turn to defend it... this is the education my parents passed onto me, this is what I believe in."
Adi couldn’t have known how his words would reach so many places in Israel and the world over, giving strength to so many people - especially to Oriki, his sister, who talks to Adi and knows that he is listening to her from above, just as he promised her… in his letter with the drawing of a cat.
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