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This art work which was presented in an exhibition on Environmental Justice
Musrara, Jerusalem 2008
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To my father
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Since I was born my father worked in the nuclear reactor facility near Dimona, in Southern Israel. Over 35 years he was exposed to dangerous nuclear radiation. When my father was 40, they discovered he had breast cancer. After they cut off his breast the cancer returned a few times. He continued working there until he resigned at age 60.
In June 2008, my father's situation got much worse. I understood I was going to lose him forever. I left my life in Jerusalem and moved to be with him in Beer Sheva where we began to desperately wander between doctors, hospitals and healers. It was three months of being together, loaded with tension and pushing boundaries, full of hopes and disappointments.
In my life my father never hugged or kissed me. I hoped that at this time we would get closer. I wanted a father
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All the pictures were taken on my cellular camera phone, summer 2008
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16/08/2008 21:13
It's more than two months that I've been with my father. Today we learned that the cancer is already in the liver and there is no chance that something good will happen. My father is inviting a lawyer and we are writing a will. In the picture, my mother is rolling years of togetherness and separation between her fingers
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18/8/2008 07:20
I am by my father all day
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19/8/2008 15:38
My father is having dialysis every two days. They take the blood out of his neck and put it back after it is filtered through a machine. I'm sitting all the time by him and waiting to talk about something meaningful before he will leave forever
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16/8/2008 17:06
A few Bedouin girls are laughing by their mother's bed, who is having dialysis as well. This is how it looks from my father's bed
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16/8/2008 17:06
Sometimes my father just wants to disconnect from all the beeping and noises, and the crying of the man in the next bed. So I bought him professional headphones and a cover for his eyes. He is dreaming and listening to music. In the picture, my father is without the headphones
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20/8/2008 08:35
His hand looks healthy. This is what my hand looks like as well
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20/8/2008 08:43
I'm looking at my father's stomach. When I was little, I used to come to him while he was sleeping and cut his toenails with my teeth. I also liked to look at the lint from his clothing collecting in his deep bellybutton
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20/8/2008 08:44
On the ceiling there are pictures of the treetops and sky. It's written on the wall that a woman donated them. I thought she must have laid there for so long that she dreamed to bring the next one who laid there a useful gift
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20/8/2008 08:45
Suddenly, I looked at my father who wasn't breathing and looked like he was choking. I called to the nurses, "I need help here!" They came immediately, lifted his legs high, His head was down and millions of hands were taking care of him fast. After 10 minutes he came back to life. I cried and asked him to forgive me. Maybe now, finally, we will open everything. My father said there is nothing to open and that he always loved us
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26/8/2008 08:41
My father is having his hair cut at home. When people come to visit I tell him that his job is to make the people laugh because everyone around him looks so sad
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28/8/2008 07:37
My girlfriend is always supportive, coming and asking. Twelve years I was waiting for her to want me, and exactly now she came to help
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28/8/2008 17:49
My father says to us that he is burning in hell and he wants to finish it as fast as possible. The doctors said they will give him whatever he wants, and maybe he wants ice cream. My mother goes to buy ice cream. I can't stand the dark rooms of the hospital anymore. We take the bed out
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28/8/2008 17:55
This is how it looks from my father's bed. Everyone is waiting for someone. My father is waiting to die
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28/8/2008 17:55
My mother comes back with the ice cream
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31/8/2008 08:38
My father is home, closed inside himself. He decides to stop all the dialysis and medical cancer treatments. He doesn't want to eat and only drinks a little bit of water
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02/09/2008 04:36
That night, I slept at my father's house. At 2 o'clock in the morning I saw something was wrong and called the doctor. For two hours my father was squirming in my hug. All the time I sang to him, "Don't be afraid, you are not alone." The whole time I cried. In the end, he stretched back and looked in my eyes. My tears fell into his eyes. He exhaled and didn't breathe again. He looked so calm. I felt like I had helped him become born. At that moment, he was not there anymore so I released him.
Something was calling me look through the open window above. Just outside there was a big white bird hovering. She was waiting for me. I looked into her eyes and then she flew away
My father died on Tuesday at 4 o'clock in the morning, exactly the same day of the week and time I was born. I covered his body with a sheet, turned the air conditioner to the coldest setting and closed the window and the door. Then I went out to the balcony. My girlfriend had been waiting there for me the whole time.
In the picture, thousands of birds covered the morning sky
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05/09/2008 14:28
After the funeral, we sit shiva with my father's brothers and sisters, and my brother and sister. Many people are visiting and telling us things about my father which I never knew. It's difficult to be at home with so many people without going out. It's like this for one week
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07/09/2008 06:09
My father's brother is saying early morning prayers
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08/09/2008 07:48
In the tombstone catalogue, I saw a model that I liked
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14/09/2008 05:43
After the 7 days of shiva were over, I became very sick. Over one and a half months I layed in bed, full of pain which made me sometimes want to die. I look bad in the picture. This is how I felt. I'm trying to smile to raise my spirit
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17/09/2008 12:44
I found a stone for my father's grave, broken and unfinished with a natural drawing of a tree in the middle. Around it, there will be river stones and on the tombstone will be written my father's name and that we loved him
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