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I must have spent 2 hours this morning trying to upload the scream scene from Garden State onto this website. Nothing I tried worked and it became this crazy obsession as if in some way Zalman would not really be gone if I could just get it to work. I was stuck in magical thinking and I stayed there most of the morning.

3 years later, it is still completely unimaginable that he is gone. I am often still taken by surprise when I see a photograph or hear a story and remember again suddenly that he is not just away. He is really not here. I saw Thor and Fast Five this weekend in honor of Zalman. He would have loved them both.

I read through the posts on Zalman’s FB page and felt what a wonderful support facebok is at times like this.  In the past all of us would have had to be alone with our separate experiences and feelings and instead there is this cyber community and that is so much less the case. I felt very grateful this morning for facebook and all of Zalman’s friends who continue to post messages to him.

I do not have much more to say this year except that i miss him and I am sad and I know that his friends and the rest of our family miss him as well.  He was lucky to have such amazing friends. I feel blessed to have so many of you still in my life.  As the sun sets it is starting to rain.  It feels like this year, even Topanga is crying just a little bit.

I know that a reminder about Zalman’s birthday will be posted on facebook pages all over the country today. I also know that from time to time that crazy picture of Zalman’s head popping out of the school bus window also appears on facebook to remind his friends to reconnect  and send him a message.   At least one person has sent a message back  in the last 2 years saying how cruel facebook is and how much he hates facebook for reminding him to reconnect with Zalman.

I am greatful to facebook today. It feels good to know that Zalman is not forgotten and that there is a community around his memory on his birthday.  As if to make sure I didn’t miss this fact, Thursday I walked into our corner hardware store and saw Zalman’s friend Charlene.  When I mentioned Zalman’s birthday,  she replied, “I know”.  It took a minute to understand how she knew and then slowly I realized it was facebook.   Zalman is having a cyber birthday today.  It feels like the modern day version of sending wishes and blessings into the universe as thoughts and prayers.

I believe that birthdays are always times for celebration, and I plan to celebrate Zalman today.  His birth was a gift.  His presence in my life and in our family is a blessing and I plan to celebrate him, everything he was. and everything he brought into my life.  This morning I was thinking of a photograph of him bare-assed, his shorts pulled down around his thighs, walking down from the top of Masada.   He was shocked when he turned around and realized that I was taking pictures, but today I will celebrated all the stories of Zalman with his pants down.  I am particularly celebrating the story of Zalman taking his pants down in English class to see if his teacher would notice – she didn’t.  I will also celebrate Zalman’s ability to look me right in the eye regardless of how fantastic the lie was that he was telling, and fool me every time. I cant think of his smile without smiling.  I can’t think of his kindness without wanting to do something thoughtful for someone I care about. Today, I will celebrate his deep friendships, his open and generous heart.  Today, I will hug in my own heart every one of his friends, all of the girls he loved and everyone who loved him starting with Sofi when he was 3 years old.  Zalman understood the meaning of friendship on a deeper level than anyone else I have ever know.  His friends were more important to him than anything else in his life followed closely by food and music.

For the past two years we have gone out to fntastic dinners on Zalman’s birthday to honor  his love of great food and his desire to be a chef.  This year it is a toss up for me between Mozza, where he and I went for his 16^th birthday,  because lets face it it is the best pizza in town, and something more down home like going out for burgers, milkshakes, and fries or finding a great BBQ shack somewhere.

Whatever we do it will include all of you in spirit who have shared in the love of and from our amazing boy.

Glad to see the beautiful pictures of Z and company. He was/is a radiant being. Blessings, Valerie Wolf

This site is dedicated to the life and memory of Zalman Katz.  It has been created as a place for all of us who love and miss him to meet and share our thoughts, our feelings, our memories, and our stories about Zalman. I invite you all to post and download anything that feels like it belongs on this site about Zalman. You can write anonymously, or carry on discussions with each other.  You can suggest links that feel connected to Zalman or his interests.  You can suggest changes. You can suggest additions. This is envisioned as a collaborative site to hold our collective memory and perhaps provide some support for all of us who are still struggling to accept the fact that he is gone.

In some cultures when someone dies the family creates a memory box and fill it with their loved one’s favorite belongings. In moments when they want to bring the person close, they take down the box and touch again their fondest memories.  I would like to think of this website as Zalman’s “family’s” cyber memory box.