Outrunning grief, one footfall at a time
Like most runners, running has always been a way to internally reset and strengthen myself. I run to clear the cobwebs from my head after yet another night in which my children didn’t sleep. I run to create order and make sense of my tasks for the upcoming day. But during the past few months, I’ve been running to make sense of my grief — our collective grief — at all that has been lost and all that we continue to lose.
On October 7, 2023, an earthquake hit our corner of the world and the seismic waves rippled out uncontrollably around us. Those closest to the epicenter felt the impact of the quake most acutely: the families that were violently torn apart that sleepy Shabbat morning in neighboring kibbutzim, the Supernova festival dancers who were slaughtered in the morning sunlight, and the soldiers killed at neighboring bases, unaware that this would be their last day.
Then there were the rest of us in Israel and abroad who, due to no fault except that of random chance, felt the ground shake beneath us at various levels of intensity. It was at 7:00 AM, huddled with my family in my in-laws’ mamad (safe room) that Shabbat morning, watching the grainy black and white footage of Hamas terrorists stalking the streets of Sderot, that I felt the first waves of that earthquake.
While the seismic waves of that assault have lessened over time, the number of losses continue to rise and the depths of our grief and painful anxiety continue to expand, shocking even the most stoic of us.
In the most human of ways, each of us has instinctively sought out coping mechanisms to handle this unprecedented type of shock and anguish. For me, I took out my running shoes and headed outside. My feet hit the pavement as I run, each step trying to outrun and pound out the deep emotional trauma.
I run past my son’s gan and down to Raziel Street, heading south to Gan Leumi.
My mind inevitably wanders and I push on, hoping that my pace will deaden the lingering pit in my stomach caused by friendships severed and forever altered as a result of this war’s vast divide.
With each footfall I remind myself that my life in Israel, my children’s birthplace, is valid, despite the masses who claim otherwise. It seems surreal that I feel the need to remind myself of this.
I run in the cool early mornings, after the morning hutar le’pirsum notifications drop, in the hope to somehow process all that was lost and all that we continue to lose.
I turn onto Berenstein Street and run past Kfar Ha’maccabiah, where displaced families have been temporarily settled, families that are still making sense of their new ‘home’.
It’s that special hour in the morning when those who choose to begin their day with a run are out. We pass each other with small grim nods and continue along our own paths of thought.
We are all runners pounding out our grief in the early mornings, trying to make sense of our cruel reality. We run past houses adorned with Israeli flags and light poles taped with kidnapped hostages signs. We run past homes in which families passed yet another sleepless night waiting for their loved ones to come back home. We run and we run hoping that maybe, just maybe, the intensity of our grief will lessen with each footfall.
I turn onto Aluf David Street and make my way back home. The inevitable end to the morning run is just a few kilometers away. I take note of my posture and breathing, straightening my back and opening my shoulders to ensure deeper breaths. I breathe in and breathe out.
Aluf David Street curves and I make out the distant outline of Tel HaShomer Hospital – the hospital that treats injured soldiers, that has welcomed our hostages back home in a warm embrace and provides long-term rehabilitation programs to treat the physical and psychological horrors they endured. I can’t help but wave to the children, men and women who, most likely, passed another sleepless night there. Good morning Mia Schem, good morning Fernando Marman and Louis Har.
The streets are filling up with people now, a sea of mightily strong people who continue to put on brave faces to hide their inner wounds, wounds that are invisible to the outside. I pass tired soldiers boarding buses to return to their bases. I can’t take another night of nightmares. It needs to stop. I see mothers and fathers balancing babies and coffee cups on their way to drop off. Just five more minutes until the kids are at gan and then I can cry. I run past an elderly woman sitting on a park bench, her face turned towards the warm sunlight. I can’t believe I am living through the Holocaust again. I pass a middle-aged couple, wearing matching shirts that read “Hostages first!” walking in silence along the sunny sidewalk. When will my daughter come home?
We push on, compartmentalizing our collective grief and trauma in the morning workday rush, knowing that we will inevitably revisit it at our most vulnerable moments. It seems that to be Israeli these days is to forcibly live in a body that fluctuates between a sickening form of anxiety over all that has been lost and gratitude for all that remains.
I return home, unlace my shoes, and place them by the door. With an almost physical effort, I push aside my thoughts and turn my attention to my immediate present. My husband and I go through the motions of getting the kids dressed, fed and ready for another day of learning and play. I can’t help but feel slightly jealous of my children’s blissful ignorance of the horrors around them.
As we all make our way out of the house, I glance at my running shoes lying on the floor. I can’t help but wonder what tomorrow morning will be like when I put them back on again.
