Proud

Every day and every night, I hear our boys in fighter jets overhead and it fills me with a sense of both comfort and dread at the same time. Comfort that these holy boys and girls have been trained to protect us and dread that G-d forbid they or we should get hurt or killed.

My 4 year old has made up his own prayer to G-d for when he hears the jets overhead" Ema! Listen! It's our Chayalim(soldiers)" and then he proceeds with" Our Father in Heaven, please protect our righteous soldiers and bring them home safely and quickly without any booboos on any part of their bodies"(translated from Hebrew).

 I and all the other mothers here have done everything we could do to maintain a sense of "normalcy", by sending the kids to camps, doing mommy camps, going to gymboree, playing in the parks, and yet, our children have experienced sirens and have had to run for shelter on numerous occasions. Even the smallest of children know that there are evil people out there who want to hurt us. Their summers have been lower key than otherwise planned. Their sleeps have been interrupted in the middle of the night in order to run for shelter or be carried to shelter. I hate that there's a small part of my children's innocence that was stolen away from them. I hate the fact that this song gives them comfort https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoB1AjVCueU
I hate that the war doesn't yet feel over to me. I hate that I get a small pang of jealousy when I see pictures of friends' kids outside of Israel without a care in the world, splashing around in their lakes by their cottages or splashing around carefree in swimming pools...

But I love the fact that my beautiful Nation has truly become one giant heart & soul over the last couple of months. I thank G-d every single day that I am a part of this awe-inspiring nation. I love the fact that during the war, so many of the barriers between left and right, Ashkenazi/Sefardi, religious and not religious, Charedi and National religious seemed to have melted away. I love the way communities rallied together to bake for the soldiers, bring them toiletries, send them love letters, prayed for them, gathered at their funerals and at their shiva houses, comforted the fallen soldiers' families...There have been boundless amounts of love, support and kindness among us.

I for one just LOVE when my kids play nice together. I LOVE when they share, when they are kind to one another and put each others' needs first. I LOVE when they listen and are helpful around the house. So too, I feel, Abaleh, our Father in Heaven, really enjoys and appreciates when we show deep love, care, appreciation and compassion for our brothers and sisters. In my heart of hearts, even in the excruciating pain of all of our losses, I truly believe that we've made Abaleh proud of us.

With Love,
Cigal