Dear Jonas,
I know this letter is out of the blue but that is because it
has taken me a very long time to write it... not because I
didn't have time, but because I didn't quite know how to
write what I wanted to say...
Ever since you told me last summer about everything that's
happened to you, its been in and out of my thoughts... Not
intensively but always present at the back of my mind. All
the things you told me, made me think; I thought I knew a
thing or two about drugs, but you made me understand I knew
nothing of it. It isn't as black and white as I pictured it
to be. A few months ago, an opportunity arose to help me
deal with all of my questions and thoughts and what-ifs,
which were growing rapidly stronger and urgent. My art
teacher gave us two assignments, which we were to choose
from; the first was to take pictures from behind, which
means to reveal things which are usually kept unseen. Things
you don't want to see or can't bring yourself to see or
maybe just can't see because it seems... unreal, too
impossible to be true...
The other assignment was to draw on an unusual texture,
which had to be related in some way to the drawing. These
assignments gave me an idea. The idea was you. I decided
that in order to help myself understand what happened to
you, I would build a sculpture about you. And I did. I don't
want you to think that how it looks represents what I think
of you, because it's the complete opposite. The sculpture's
appearance is what I saw in people who use drugs and some of
what you told me you were like back then. The figure is
backed into a corner, with his hand over his face to protect
himself -  he's frightened, mistrustful. But it also seems
as if he's about to stand up, about to attack. He's like an
animal; when you back an animal into a corner, when you push
it far info, when you threaten its existence, it attacks by
instinct - to survive. I left the figure naked, decayed yet
raw because the drugs have pealed off of him all the layers
of culture and humanity - which humans have raped themselves
in over thousands of years, and left him exposed - nothing
more then an animal, a savage. No more superior, nor
civilized than one. His eyes are bottomless pits, holes.
They have no depth, no soul - he cares of nothing and no
one, he feels no love. On his body you can see the scars
that were left from the melting and bending of the metal. I
left these scars on purpose - like the scars that the drugs
burn into the soul. All of these things, every last one - I
can't see in you. You always see things happening to others
but can never imagine them happening to you. I can't imagine
the drugs related to you. In the very few times I've met
you, you've managed to make me love you as much as I love my
cousins back in Israel, which have lived next door to me
since the day I was born. You've become a part of me as much
as they are, in some ways even more. You're a part of my
family, and as one, you seem untouchable, cut off of the
world and all of its defects. That is why I can't see it in
you.
Your presence in the sculpture is in the texture itself. The
metal represents the iron that is used as foundation for
buildings. That foundation is what keeps the buildings from
collapsing; it's their spine. What I can see in you is that
foundation, which you must have had in order to make it out
of what you've been through. I also think that that
foundation must have grown stronger after Battling face to
face with the addiction to drugs. It seems that after
surviving a thing like that, there isn't much you can't
do...
I think you're strong, Jonas, and brave. You've started a
new life, but you haven't forgotten your past, and you're
not ashamed of it. You use what you've learned from that
past to help others in their own struggles and battles.
You're giving them a chance for a future. That is why I
admire you.

With love,
       Hadas.