‘I have a funny story to tell you’
“I have a funny story to tell you” — that’s how my youngest son began our conversation this morning. He’s a lone soldier reservist serving in a non-mother approved place and I’m the mom sitting in the US wishing, well, wishing lots of things: an end to the war, the return of the hostages, to be able to hug my kids and never let go….
I’m a boy-mom having raised five amazing sons to adulthood. As kids, they never had guns to play with because I just didn’t approve of that. But boys will be boys, and they managed to make guns from sticks, or other toys. Fast forward, and, one by one, four of them made aliyah, and enlisted in the IDF as lone soldiers.
My life became very different, now they had real guns. It’s amazing how over the last 11 years, since the first one drafted, how much army lingo I now know and how many IDF service-related things are now the norm for us. Conversations with my sons have very regularly included what kind of gun they have, or how excited they were to get a really cool sight for their gun. Chats on our family WhatsApp might be about the difference between lefty and righty shooting and good eye- and ear-protection. Two of my soldiers were magistim, and my brain now contains details about this gun that I could not in a million trillion years have ever fathomed knowing.
Fast forward again to today, more than a year into a multifrontal war with three of my now reservist sons serving. They are in their second and third rounds of miluim, reserve duty, and while I pray along with everyone else for this to end, I don’t see it happening before they finish this current round of duty. I consider myself lucky because they do have a sort of regular schedule where they have a yetziyah — time “out” occasionally. One of my sons had the last few days off and I got to talk to him twice! He went back this morning, just as my youngest son got “out.” (I really need the IDF to get on board with the idea of letting all three of them out at the same time just so I can breathe. Can anybody here arrange that?)
Since the war started, I cherish every single text and call even more, and since the war, I strive to have normal conversations with them. So, when my youngest called this morning and started by saying he had a “funny story” to tell me, I didn’t expect that story to include the word shrapnel. And now shrapnel has become a new word in our “normal” conversation. Again, I feel lucky and thank G-d, it was really, really minor, and that he’s fine, it’s a band-aid level injury, and as one of my other sons told me, that’s the preferred level of shrapnel injury (I don’t know why he thinks “preferred” and “shrapnel injury” should be in the same sentence). The medic told him his body will either expel it or absorb it on its own — “so now I’ll have extra iron,” he tells me, great, my very own Iron Man.
I carry on talking with him, joking and cajoling, and above all not crying, just keeping the conversation light and normal. But in my head, it’s anything but. In my head, I see that my son, all my sons, are in danger and I’m half a world away, and helpless to protect them. Of course, I’ve known this all along, but that knowing never included the word “shrapnel” before and that word has opened a chasm I don’t think I’ll be able to close. I think about my kids, my friends’ kids, really every single soldier and all their parents and I know it’s the same for all of us.
Early on in my lone soldier mom journey, I somewhat jokingly established a “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. As the years have progressed, my sons have all held to that policy pretty well, I’m thankful that they have their father and each other to talk details to, that’s not my role. When I recounted this story to some lone soldier mom friends this morning, they asked me why he even mentioned it. I think the very sad truth is that after more than a year, this is just normal to them, another day at the office, one I fear that he and all soldiers will be dealing with for long after this war is over.
So, for now, I will continue to put one foot in front of the other, remember to breathe in and out, enjoy talking to my soldiers when I can, while I rely on the support of my family and my lone soldier mom friends. As we enter into this very bittersweet holiday, and going forward for the foreseeable future, I will, as I have since October 7th, have my phone almost physically attached to me and now my updated reality of normal.