I was leaving all my friends behind. Except Eliana. And yet high school, it seemed, had no room for her

As told to Devorah Grant

I

’ve known Eliana ever since I was the new girl in Bais Rivka, seven years old in the back of a classroom, where everyone was reading Rashi. I’d never learned Rashi before. Nor, so it seemed, had Eliana. She swung on her chair in a carefree manner, and told me that she had recently moved, too. A kindred spirit. I rapidly settled into school, making friends with Riva, Shayna, and by extension, Efrat, too. My closest friend was Riva, whose warm nature made me feel right at home. But Riva and I were split for most of our classes. While I was in class A for English and Math, she was in class B; while I was stuck struggling to understand Rashi and Chumash in a group of weaker students, she was in class with my favorite teacher. That’s why I ended up spending so much time with Eliana. Poor souls with imagination and so many questions, we wondered why we were chanting words and translation, what on earth was a shoresh, and when would someone realize that neither of us had the foggiest clue how to learn this way. But no one did.

I knew Eliana was different. She had a dreamy air in her clear-as-glass eyes, an engaging smile and a complete cluelessness which turned me in to more of a mother figure, even at that age. She entertained me with her endless tales about her family and her out-of-the-box  thinking. Sometimes, her messiness and naïveté annoyed me. Like when she’d leave everything in another classroom and have to borrow a pencil; or when she couldn’t find her books in her messy desk. My desk was stacked in perfect order. I just didn’t get it. But time moved on this way. We were always different.

Three years passed, and it was time to go to high school. I was leaving all my friends behind. Except Eliana. And yet high school, it seemed, had no room for her.