This post will be more personal than anything I’ve ever written before. But it needs to be said. By someone. And so I will be the one to say it.
You know that feeling — when you sit by the phone, waiting for it to ring, waiting for that someone to call — about a date, a job, a plan?
Well, Israel’s at war now, or so CNN tells me. And I find myself just sitting there, staring at the phone, and waiting.
I’m waiting for the phone call. The one I hope will never come, but I know it may come anyway. At any time. From my mom, my dad, my sister.
Israeli troops have entered Gaza. A rocket has hit an apartment building.
A child has been killed. A woman wounded.
These are just headlines. To most of us, just big red words at the top of CNN.com.
But not for me.
I sit and wait, to hear:
“Your cousin’s been called up”
“Your uncle’s going into Gaza”
“Your grandma has been killed”
My grandmother’s apartment building was hit this past weekend. Her actual home, where she lives, up on the second floor.
A Hamas rocket plowed into her roof.
No one was hurt this time (Baruch Hashem!), but what about next time? Or the time after that?
And so I catch myself, just looking over at the phone, every minute or so… wondering… waiting… Will they call? Will it be THE news this time? The terrible news, that deep down, we all dread?
They know at work — if anything happens, I might not be coming in tomorrow, or the day after that. It was a difficult conversation to have with my boss — a lifelong Midwesterner — trying to explain what our reality looks like. The reality of war. The knowledge that any moment now, someone may kill my grandma. May blow up my cousin or my friend. At any moment. Any day.
And so we wait. And do not for a moment leave our phones.
My grandparents are currently living in Ashdod, Israel, where they have been living under a near-constant rocket barrage for the past five days. We can do nothing but hope, and pray, for their safety.
[Image: FreeFoto]
