Posted on July 5, 2024
We’re all playing a game of “Life is Beautiful”
I have four sweet kids, the eldest is 12 and the youngest is 2. I work in Derech Kfar Education Institute, supporting educational staff in schools that work with at-risk youth. I’m also a psychotherapist. I’m married to Uri, who is an architect and entrepreneur in the field of construction. We live in Ein Hod, an artists’ village in the Carmel.
The gravity of the situation
On October 7th, we were at home. We don’t use media on Shabbat, so rumors started reaching us very late in the morning, around 9 o’clock. We understood that something dramatic had happened in the south, but didn’t fully grasp what it was. The truth is, we felt certain the army would deal with it and we just needed to give it time. I remember a moment when a friend told me she saw on TV a mother and her children being kidnapped and taken to Gaza, and I remember telling her there was no way; the army was surely there and handling it. From a distance there was a very clear feeling that we were on it, that there was nothing to worry about, that everything we were hearing was exaggerated. And maybe that also explains why on that day Uri, my husband, stayed home. Later, when he explained to me why he wanted to be in the reserves indefinitely, he said he felt he didn’t do his duty on October 7th. From his point of view, he could have helped but hadn’t grasped the gravity of the situation and therefore was absent.
Straight away, Uri was appointed to be the village’s Head of Security. Within a week he was called up to reserves and more or less stopped coming home.
Anxiety
No one else knew it yet, but Uri spent those first weeks exploring Hamas’s tunnels and returning with very alarming information. It hadn’t been discussed yet in the Israeli mediaat that point, but he had already witnessed the crazy underground network that was uncovered. Uri serves in a small and secret unit that has done incredibly frightening anddangerous things.And the hardest thing for me, beyond needing to function alone with thechildren – which was a challenge – was worrying that something might happen to him. I’mglad to talk about it now in the past tense, but I was constantly terrified he would be killed,that someone would knock on my door and deliver the news. It’s hard to describe thattension.And within all that, I was trying to function as a mother who can smile, who canwatch the kids doing somersaults and laugh with them in the living room.That was thehardest challenge for me.
It was also tough for the kids. My son experienced several nights of severe anxiety attacks, crying bitterly, and I couldn’t help him. He was in extreme distress and kept saying he had seen a scary movie, and gave explanations supposedly unrelated to Uri being in Gaza, but deep down I knew he was under incredible stress, just like me. He’s a big boy, has his own phone, he reads the news and knows what’s going on. He understands that his dad is in a dangerous and scary place. That was one of the most painful moments. Another was one Shabbat when I was alone with the kids. I was doing the Kiddush when my daughter burst into tears and said she wouldn’t allow me to do the Kiddush, that only Dad should do it. That deep feeling of Uri’s absence came out at various moments that we couldn’t anticipate.
I feel like we’re all living in an atmosphere of anxiety while trying to present to the children a reality that is different, one that is pleasant. We’re all playing a game of “Life is Beautiful,” but in the end, we’re anxious parents. There’s a permanent cloud of tension in the air. It’s tough and it weighs on the heart. Uri was in the reserves for 220 days; now that he’s been home for three weeks, I can physically feel a change in me. It’s only now as I sense my muscles relaxing that I am able to understand the level of stress I was under.
Reality enters our home
During those early days, a family from Be’eri who had survived the massacre, arrived in Ein Hod. I met them by chance at the playground. I saw a family with a child around my daughter’s age right when I needed to borrow a diaper. I approached the mother and asked for one, and someone behind us said, “Why are you taking a diaper from a survivor from Be’eri?” I said, “What are you talking about?” The mother began to tell me their story, and the two of us stood in the playground, sobbing, for about an hour. We immediately bonded. Soon I started providing them with emotional guidance because they were in a state of severe distress, suffering from nightmares, terror and anxiety attacks. It was a family with three children. The father was wounded while fighting with the civil defense unit and survived, while the rest of the family hid in the safe room. I supported them for awhile. At some point, they had nowhere to go, so I invited them to stay with us, and they moved in. We left the house, moved into the guest unit below, and that was it. They entered our lives.
Up until that point, there had been an attempt to shield the children from everything that was going on, because they were children, and we wanted to protect them. In Ein Hod, we have the “privilege” of not even mentioning that there’s a war because there are no sirens here. But all of a sudden, there was a family in my house who had survived the massacre, and they have kids who talk and share very scary and disturbing things. It entered my home, and my children started coming to me with very difficult questions — why do they hate us? Why do they want us to die? I knew that my children were going to encounter this the moment I invited the family to stay here. I also understood that we can’t shield them from the truth, but we can guide them and help them deal with it.
Narrative and Resilience
We did very intensive work with the children from Be’eri to help them tell their story and build their narrative. They actually wrote a sort of book, each one about their own experiences. It was really important to talk with them about their story, to hear their fears and also their anger. The children were very focused, for example, on the fact that their father hadn’t been at home with them. In fact he left them with their mother while he was fighting to protect Be’eri, but from their limited perspective, because their father wasn’t with them in the safe room, he wasn’t there to protect them. On the one hand, it was important to give them space, to listen and talk about it. On the other hand, it was very important to tell the story of how he had gone out to protect everyone, to reinforce the fact that he had really been there for them, and to restore their confidence.
We also worked with them to learn what they did during those hours in the safe room that helped them and their mother get through it. There was a 9-year-old boy, for instance, who really helped his mother. He was very strong, and when the terrorists arrived, he actually pushed the door with her and helped her keep the safe room closed. So we formulated and wrote these things down to give them a voice, so that we could recognize and appreciate those truly inspiring moments. In the end, this is what the children carry with them, the story they tell themselves about what happened during that time.
My children, despite their father being drafted and their mother being anxious, are really proud of their father serving in the reserves. I see how they go and tell people about it, and how it fills them with a sense of pride and strength, giving them a different sense of the significance of this period. Of course, this is not just a narrative that I constructed – the whole of Israeli society is preoccupied with it. But if you ask them, from their point of view, they are a part of this. And I think it’s amazing that that’s what they’ve managed to takeaway from this.
In hindsight, I also feel that I gave my children a very precious gift when I invited this family into our home. Because their story, when they talk about October 7th –and they still talk about it to this day – is that, during those days, they were generous, productive and helpful. They opened their hearts and welcomed those children into their home, even into their own beds. In hindsight – I didn’t think about it at the time – I think it really gave them a sense of resilience, that they were able to do something. And by the way, it was the same for me.
I think we have a responsibility as parents, educators, and as a society, to pay attention to the narrative we create for our children. To hold a narrative where we as adults are not powerless, where they as children are not powerless, where we are able to make a difference, and they have something to give. This narrative builds resilience for all of us, children and adults alike.
Room for questions, even when there are no answers
I believe it is our duty and privilege to confront our children with reality. There are people who manage to shield their children from information, from the truth, but eventually children will encounter things and they will have many questions. In my view, it’s crucial to maintain our position as someone they can turn to with questions, as someone who provides answers. Often, parents find themselves so afraid of the conversation that they avoid it, not allowing it to take place, leaving the child very alone with their questions, fears, and distress. The child senses that their parent is not the person who will answer their questions and be able to support them in dealing with their fears; the parent signals to them that they cannot handle it. From my personal and professional experience, I believe that ultimately a child needs their parent, even when the parent doesn’t know the answers, because the adult’s ability to be with the children and allow them to ask their questions tells them they are not alone. This is perhaps the most essential thing for us as adults too – to feel that we are not alone.
A strong and clear message
My son asked me some time ago what would happen if he were kidnapped, and what would his dad and I do. Now, he’s already a mature and rational kid who understands the situation. But he asked me that question, and I said to him, ‘You know what? Your dad and I would be there in seconds, wherever you are, and we’d rescue you.’ My answer was so illogical in the light of everything we now understand about the hostage situation, but he simply heard me and calmed down. I felt that was the answer he needed to hear, the one he was really asking for. I saw the smile on his face and felt it was the right answer to give.
I’ve encountered all sorts of parents during this period. For example, I met a dad who talked about not negotiating for hostages and that they should only be rescued by the military. Then his daughter asked him, ‘But Dad, what would you do if I were kidnapped?’ And he told her, ‘If you were kidnapped, you would have to wait for the military to come and rescue you. ‘That answer broke my heart. I mean, what does it matter what you think? What matters is what you tell your daughter now. Another friend shared with me that her 7-year-old son asked her who’s winning the war, and she told him that in war there are no winners, and began to explain various things to him. But he’s 7 years old, and he needed to hear that we are strong.
I believe we really have a responsibility to protect our children’s emotional well-being, and we need to know how to distinguish between what belongs to the adult world and what belongs to the children’s world. I think the message to children needs to be very clear –that they are safe.
How much longer?
People have asked me many times over this period, why isn’t Uri coming home? Doesn’t he remember he has a family? Why is he doing such long reserve duty? It seemed like they were almost angry at him for spending so much time in the reserves. This one time, someone turned to my daughter and asked her directly, “What’s happening with your dad? Doesn’t he want to come home?” My 9-year-old daughter could have responded any number of ways. She could have said that the war isn’t over, she could have explained that her dad is watching over her and them. She could have said that her dad is where he’s needed. But she gave an answer that really took me by surprise – “My dad will come home when the hostages come home.” And I looked at her and felt that she was actually saying – to me, to herself, and to the people around her – my reality won’t be whole and stable again, and my dad won’t come back to read me a bedtime story, until these hostages return to their beds.
For me it was quite a moment. I stood before my daughter and I said to her, “Thank you.”
