There's a particular kind of heartbreak in watching your child learn that death doesn't just happen to other people's friends. Today, as Zamir Burke is laid to rest, I'm watching my son face a reality that no 20-year-old should have to confront: the loss of a dear friend in combat.
Zamir was everything we hope our children will grow up to be. At just 20, he was already exceptional - a brilliant mind with a gift for mathematics and physics, matched by a soul that understood the deepest meaning of friendship and duty. He played guitar, bringing music into the lives of those around him. His generosity wasn't just a trait; it was a way of life.
As a mother, I find myself in an impossible space. My son is both a soldier and my child, and today, as he mourns his friend, he is achingly both. I watch him process this loss, and I realize that while I've spent years preparing him for life, nothing prepared me for this moment - watching him navigate the razor's edge between warrior and grieving friend.
The proximity of it all is staggering. Death was always an abstract concept, something that happened in news reports or to people we didn't know. Even with our children serving, we mothers maintain a careful distance in our minds - a protective buffer of "not my child, not their friends." But Zamir's death has shattered that illusion. He was just here, just alive, just playing his guitar and solving complex equations, just being the outstanding commander who cared deeply for his soldiers.
And now I watch my son learn lessons that no classroom could teach: how to carry the memory of a friend while continuing to serve, how to be strong when strength seems impossible, how to honor Zamir's sacrifice while processing the raw unfairness of it all.
Zamir died protecting our homeland, a phrase we use often but whose weight feels unbearably heavy today. He was twenty years old. Twenty. An age when most young people worldwide are worrying about college exams or summer plans. Instead, he died standing guard over all we hold dear.
As I watch my son navigate this loss, I'm struck by the dual nature of my role - to comfort him while respecting the soldier he's become, to acknowledge both his pain and his duty. I find myself holding space for his grief while managing my own fear, knowing that tomorrow he'll return to the same service that claimed his friend.
They say that a nation that forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten. Zamir Burke will not be forgotten. He lives on in the memories of his fellow soldiers, in the hearts of his friends, and in the future he helped secure but will never see. He lives on in my son's stories, in the quiet moments when the guitar music plays, and in the determination of those he left behind to honor his sacrifice.
Twenty is too young to die. But Zamir lived those twenty years with purpose, with kindness, with brilliance, and ultimately, with the highest form of courage. As we lay him to rest today, we're not just mourning a soldier - we're mourning a mathematician who loved music, a leader who cared deeply for others, and a young man who embodied the very best of what we hope our children will become.
May Zamir's memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
