September 1st is still October 7th here

Normally on the first day of school you don’t learn that much. Especially if you are the parent. You take pictures of white shirts that will come home immediately stained. You rejoice in your kids going back to a full schedule that doesn’t involve you figuring out how to cram in work between spending a fortune on movies, food, activities that are ridiculously priced, and more. And you pick them up early, annoyed that they can’t just get on with it, and have a full day already.

When you live in Israel, post October 7th, you live a new normal of carrying the weight of life and death on your shoulders; like the cartoon devil and angel, except less funny and more weight.

September 1st is still October 7th here. And with today’s news of six hostage bodies found dead, executed with a bullet to the head, you realize there will be no saved by the bell for you or anyone. Death is supposed to be final, but in our time zone it is a ripple effect, downstream and just plain down. We want to rip our shirts like mourners and yet we just bought them to start a new year.

Raising children in a war zone is complicated to say the least. Raising children that are living with friends and family that have hostages in captivity, there is no syllabus or supplies that can prepare you for what comes next. So this year when my kids asked if they could buy the fancy pencils, I said yes. And yes to the fancy sharpeners and even highlighters beyond your typical neon yellow and green. And as much as I want the big erasers to work better than the cheap ones, I know I can only shield them from so much.

It’s the first day of school and Iran didn’t attack us. But we have been hit. Today’s news is modern day Shakespeare. We wake up from the poison only to find our love dead beside us. The knife is sharp and the wound is deep, and it is our own hand that drives it further. While the blood of our brothers and sisters seems to run through the streets, our hope has dried up. We think we are at the final act, but we also understand that the curtain has not dropped.

It is a lesson none of us wants to learn.