During today’s phone-round of family and friends to check on the whereabouts and wellbeing of our soldier sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, cousins, sons-in-law, etc, I discovered that my friend Liz’s son Guy has dislocated a bone in his foot. He fell while on a rigorous training exercise with his elite combat unit and now he has “gimmelim” – sick leave - for several weeks.
I am ashamed to admit that when I heard this news I felt a brief pang of envy, which gives some indication of the distorted reality we are living in. What self-respecting mother – let alone a Jewish one – would want her offspring to sustain an injury? Of course I don’t want that – well, not really. But Guy’s injury is a minor one, thankfully, and over the next few weeks Liz can feed him, pamper him, chat to him and simply see him whenever she want to. It’s what all army mums long to do, especially now.
Most serving soldiers (including those not in Gaza at the moment) have not been on leave for at least the past fortnight and we have yet to find out who will be home this weekend.
Every week I go to Meatland, a local deli in Ra’anana, that stocks numerous imported goods, including Rakusen’s digestive biscuits, which my son loves. I buy a dozen packs at a time, together with assorted other goodies that will be ready either to take to his army base on Friday (if he returns there, isn’t coming home and we are allowed to visit) or to put in his room for him to work his way through over the weekend.
I’ve often said that Israel isn’t the place for Jewish mothers, and it’s a country full of them. Our worry genes are working overtime now, with good reason. Still, all we can do is give each other moral support with phone calls, stock up on our soldiers’ favourite foods and hope for the best.
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