The Blogs: We each have our October 7th, this is mine.

If I close my eyes, I can still feel the salty, warm wind on my sweaty face, I can hear the playful chatter of children at the campsite, the smell of bbq’s being prepared on the last Friday evening of a busy vacation. Hebrew, Russian and Arabic all spoken together in the background – for a moment it seemed they were one language.

I am writing so I don’t forget. I am writing to digest. I am writing to share my story. We each have our October 7th, this one is mine.

I don’t have a particularly tragic story, thankfully, I wasn’t at the Nova party, nor were any of my family members. I wasn’t in one of the attacked kibbutzim, nor were my family. I am one of many transparent traumatized, sad and injured people that live each day with the deep pain, frustration and anger of the most devastating day in this country’s history.

I am one of the “average”, transparent people who don’t sleep at night knowing that quite easily, it could have been me or my children, or parents, or nieces or nephews there… we were all so close. I am writing so that when someone will ask me where I was on Oct. 7th, I have my story to tell. It’s not heroic, it’s not particularly tragic, but it’s mine. I am writing, because it helps – even if for a moment.

October 6th: I still remember that it was hard to fall asleep. It was our second night camping in Achziv, on the beach. A family had set up their tent very close to ours and were talking (too) loudly well into the night. After a great day enjoying the turquoise waters and beautiful sunset, we had a fun evening around a campfire with friends who we were camping with and friends who had come to visit us there for a few hours, taken in by the calmness of the summer air that had finally started to show some signs of fall.

6:30 am Oct 7th: I am still tossing and turning around in my sleeping bag, Amnon was in the tent next to me, and the kids all decided to sleep together outside of it. The night before, my friend Michal and I planned to meet outside the tents at 6:45 for a walk on the beach. At 6:35, moments before my alarm would go off, my phone made a strange notification noise, a notification I would grow to fear in the weeks, months (and now I can say years) after. Till this very day…But at that moment, I didn’t recognize what it was.

I remember feeling annoyed that one of the kids had not turned off the notifications for some app. And yet, I went to check my phone. There, I saw that there was a missile alert at home and clearly remember the first thought being what an unfortunate mistake this must be. A siren, waking everyone up on a holiday. I looked at my better half in disbelief. We checked the news and I quickly got out of the tent to notify my friend. She was just getting out of their tent to meet me for our walk. I remember my body language at that moment, uncertain of the words to use and that deep surreal feeling encompass me as I shared with her that there are sirens in the Tel Aviv area. Little did we know what was really going on.

The radio was still playing a set of some old Israeli songs which one only plays at 6 am on a Shabbat and holiday morning – the on call broadcaster team had not woken up and the alerts did not stop coming in. The phone was beeping constantly, notifying us of sirens going off everywhere. It was only later that we changed the settings on the app to notify us only of the alerts in our area.

We had originally planned on a pancake breakfast and a quiet morning by the beach before heading home, but as the news started to unfold, spending time on an exposed beach so close to the Northern border did not seem like a good idea.

We watched the campsite wake up to the news, quickly made pancakes and headed home. In hindsight, at home that evening, when we started understanding the gravity of the situation, we understood how lucky we were that a northern front had not started that day. Who knows where we would have ended up. That thought still sends chills down my spine till this very day.

But during those early hours, we kept going down to the beach to look for boats that might be approaching the shore… we had no clue what was really going on. I still remember expressing my sincere sadness by the news of one woman being killed in the south. We clearly had no idea…

As we anxiously got in the car, I asked the kids to put on shoes (as opposed to being barefoot or with their beach flip flops) and to stay awake and alert; we knew that we might need to stop if we hear of a missile attack on our way (what a thought). Again, that thought would continue to accompany us until this very day. Yet, at the time it seemed so surreal.

We drove home in complete anxious silence, watching the usually quiet, Shabbat and holiday highways fill with armored vehicles and soldiers of all ages and backgrounds standing at bus stations, heading south. Not sure exactly why, but it was when we saw a group of religious, reserve soldiers standing at a bus stop at one of the junctions, that I burst into tears. It seemed like a scene from the Yom Kippur movies we grew up on.

We made it home not understanding what was happening just an hour away from us. As we parked outside, we met our neighbors. They shared that they had family in one of the kibbutzim in the south and did not know where they were or what had happened to them. Hours and days later they would find out that some were murdered and their cousin, Itay Svirsky, was taken hostage. 4 months later they would learn that he was murdered in the horrific Hamas tunnels.

I honestly don’t remember much about the rest of that day or the days and weeks that followed – I think we were in shock. Here are bits and pieces of what I do remember…

I remember loosing my voice. No words to describe anything we were going through.

I remember not sleeping for months fearing they would knock on our door at night (trying to figure out where we would hide).

I remember our youngest sleeping next to us on a mattress for months following October 7th.

I remember the creepy silence of the streets, the ambulances and police cars changing the sound of their sirens to sound different from our alerts.

I remember calling the police at 3 am because there was a strange sound of a motorcycle in the neighborhood.

I remember long long days of work trying to figure out what our role is now… how we can be of support during these days and struggling to lead sessions with the Hostage Forum.

I remember my CEO confident that our trip to the US would still happen a few weeks later (of course it didn’t). Proof that we were not understanding the gravity of it all.

I remember learning about the unknown fate of the daughter of our child’s PE teacher – hoping so much she would turn up somewhere. Some people did. She didn’t. Lior’s body was eventually found.

I remember having 6 nieces and nephews called for reserve duty.

I remember seeing the name and reading about the son of a childhood friend killed trying to defend his army base.

I remember being worried to death about a friend who lives in the area, until I learnt that she left the area and made it safely to Jerusalem.

I remember helping women who had just given birth in the maternity ward, their husbands on reserve duty, and they had no way to move and no one to help them move away from windows, as sirens went off.

I remember volunteering for months at the local cafe, learning how sandwiches can bring a sense of purpose and build community.

I remember a Friday evening, sitting quietly before dinner, for the first time in weeks, trying to meditate and just as I close my eyes, a siren goes off. I remember them going off several times a day.

I remember a missile falling 5 houses from us. I remember our roof being hit and the house flooded after the first rain several months after the incident.

I remember stopping on the side of the road as sirens blared with a friend only to notice that we were trying to (foolishly) cover ourselves from missiles from the sky, but the real fear came from an ant hill that was right under us…

I remember looking for any way possible to help those less fortunate than us, collecting clothing, toiletries and doing the little bit we can to help.

I remember the kid’s questions; not knowing how to answer: does the other side has an Iron Dome too… or why do they hate us so much…

I remember not being able to watch anything anything on TV – only with time, I started to listen to podcasts, to interviews and small documentary footage. The nightmares…

Bits and pieces of memories of those odd first few months. Never imagined it would last this long.

We have changed. I have changed. I am no longer the same person.

Let them all come home. Let the war end. Let the healing begin, for those hurt, for the families, for the country. It’s time.

Two Years | Noam Horev

I’m no longer the same person. The sea is no longer the same sea. The earth is no longer the same earth. And the soul — what will become of the soul.

Something broke. Something closed. The music that was is no longer the same sound —

The rhythm is different. The tone is different. I almost don’t remember anymore what my life was like before.

Hoping for better days really really soon.

As I finish this last sentence, sirens are blaring in Eilat (where we are spending a few days of “relaxation”…) as a hostile aircraft enters the airspace, and now again… (within 20 min).

*All the pictures in the post were taken by me.