For 476 agonizing days, the families of Liri Albag, Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev, and Naama Levy lived in suspended animation, their world frozen on that October morning when their daughters were taken from their observation post at Nahal Oz.
Through scorching summers and cold winters, they rallied at intersections, pleaded at the United Nations, and kept vigil outside government offices. Their daughters' fresh young faces smiled down from billboards across Israel, their absence a wound in the nation's heart.
The truth is that all of us lived with constant terror about their fate, beautiful young women in the hands of terrorists - it's every Israeli's worst nightmare come true. We tried not to think about it at times, because the possibilities were so horrific, but we couldn't stop - our women in the hands of actual monsters, in the bowels of hell.
