Former hostage Segev Kalfon marked one year since his return home, sharing a deeply personal account of the longing he endured during 738 days in captivity and his ongoing struggle to readjust to life since his release.
“One year ago today, I came home," Kalfon wrote in a post on Instagram. “For 738 days, I prayed for this day - to see my family’s faces again and tell them I love them. Back then, it seemed like a distant dream."
During his captivity, sleep became a way to briefly reconnect with the people and life from which he had been cut off.
“At night, when I fell asleep, I would meet them. All of them. My family, my friends. The dreams were my escape from the reality I was living in," he wrote.
Even the simplest everyday activities took on new meaning in his dreams. Kalfon recalled longing for the freedom to walk into a supermarket and choose what he wanted for himself.
“Just walk in and choose what I want, rather than what someone else chooses for me. Such a simple thing that became a dream," he wrote.
But each time he woke up, he was forced to confront the reality of his captivity.
“Then I would wake up. Open my eyes and see that I was still stuck in that concrete hell. And I would try to fall asleep again. Return to the dream. Escape reality once more, because just a moment earlier, I had been with them. I had seen them. I didn't want that moment to end."
One year after his return, Kalfon said he was still learning to rebuild his life.
“A year has passed, and I'm still learning to live again. It still hurts, I'm still healing, but I'm fortunate to experience moments that once seemed like a distant dream, almost impossible to imagine ever coming true," he wrote.
He concluded his post with gratitude for his life and the year since his return.
“Thank you for this first birthday. Thank you to the Creator of the world for life. Life can be so extreme."