The Unspoken Truth

As I sat down to write this piece, I reflected back to the nearly 11 months since October 7th.

What has not been written?
What has not been expressed?

What has not been said over this period of indescribable anguish and pain for the global Jewish community?

On the morning of October 7th, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning.

It was well before sunrise in Washington but in Israel, the entire country was already well into the vicious attack that would change everything. I have the horrid habit of checking my phone when I awake in the middle of the night and that morning was no different.

And yet it was so different.

An image only reminiscent of hell itself was on the screen of my phone.

As I read the words I could not hold in my gasp.

I frantically woke up my husband, unable to find the words.

We needed to call our family immediately.

Still in our pajamas, faces not washed, we ran to our living room and turned on the live news feed from Israel.

I don’t remember much more after that.

Not from that day.
Or the days after.
Quite frankly even the weeks after.

As much as I was so immersed personally
and professionally, much of that early period immediately following this tragedy of incomprehensible proportion, I have somehow wiped my memory of.

What I do remember was the first day I was able to gather the strength to do laundry.

With 3 littles, it was quickly piling up.

Well over a week had passed and the time had come to take part in the most basic of parenting responsibilities.

As I sat in the laundry room and began dividing the wash, I collapsed.

Fell to the ground and screamed to the skies.

I beseeched G-d.

For the first time in my life, I beseeched G-d.

I yelled to the heavens as I touched tiny pants, shirts with favorite characters on them…little socks and the scent of my children everywhere.

I cried harder than I ever felt myself cry before.

All of the agony of thinking of the beds to never be slept in again, the mothers who had no way to protect their babies…

The laundry that will never be washed.

It all came to surface during this most simple act.

And it shattered a heart I could not comprehend had anything else left to break.

I realized what it is that we have not spoken of in what is now close to year of this horror.

The unspoken truth.

As we fight for the hostages to come home.

As we shed countless tears for the agony their families are living through.

And the hell they themselves are in.

As we watch endless funerals for young men fallen; the children they have left behind and those so young they have left a world full of dreams and aspirations that will never come to fruition.

As we worry for the communities in the North and South.

The pain and grief that seems eternal.

What we have left unspoken of is how this has impacted each and every one of us.

In our homes.
In our lives.

The unaddressed trauma so many of us are facing; putting it on a back burner since, justifiably so, there are issues so much more critical to address right now.

The arguments.
Loss of patience.
Lack of sleep.
Constant triggers.
Never ending worry.

Communities across the globe face an unprecedented level of hatred against Jews as we try to navigate an act of terror that has still not ended.

107 hostages remain held and with them, so do the hearts and souls of myself and so many.

Filled with guilt at moments of laughter.
Staring twice at a bountiful meal.
Questioning ourselves as we reassure our children they are safe…

Israel cannot begin to heal until everyone is home.

There is no healing without them.
And with Israel’s healing comes the necessary journey ahead for so many of us that starts first with the recognition of a trauma we may have wanted to believe was secondary for so many of us.

But it is not.
It is with us every moment of everyday.
And it is the unspoken truth that we must address.

Bring them home now.

Every one MUST come home now.

Only then can we can all begin to try and heal the devastation we are all living with.