This is you, this is your life. These are your worries on a daily basis.
Your alarm goes off, you wake up in the morning and check your phone as usual. It is buzzing with notifications, you read that a rocket fell on the New York area and destroyed a house. Seven injured, two toddlers. The news article doesn’t say who these people are, it doesn’t provide names, but in your mind, all of the worst scenarios are playing over and over.
Before you could even put your feet on the ground, still laying in bed, you’ve mentally went through all of the people you know that live in New York. Could it possibly be one of my friends, family, colleagues? Do I know the victims? Do my friends know them? You take a minute to breathe, but you find it impossible to inhale, panic is over you. Another notification arrives - finally, it says where the rocket fell. You read the news with tears filling your eyes, slowly falling down your cheeks, without having any control over it. Yes, it fell three miles away from your house. From the neighborhood where you lived for a while, where your friends from school and your family still live. Honestly - and here finally you start sobbing - it could have been your house. It could have been you. But it couldn’t have been you, because you moved away some time ago and now live in San Francisco. Rockets don’t fall on San Francisco. At this point, you start texting everyone you know who still lives in New York, in your old neighborhood. You make sure that everyone is safe, that their friends and family are safe, that life can go on and this bad start of the day can be forgotten. Everyone is fine, they text you back and say that it was just an ugly scare, but they are alright. Yes, they heard the ‘boom’. Yes, they felt it. But they are fine. At this point, you finally gather the strength to rise from your bed and make yourself the first cup of coffee of the day.
The day can start. Everything is alright.
Fast forward a week or so - the same happens. Again. And again. And every morning you wake up and before checking your phone you pray to God not to receive one of those notifications. New York is constantly under attack, your friends and family could have a rocket fall on their home, car, workplace at any point. And you are sitting comfortably, idly, but panicking in your cozy San Francisco home. There is nothing you can do but worry.
This is you, this is your life. These are your worries on a daily basis.
All of this seems ridiculous - actually, your friends and family in New York are perfectly fine because rockets do not fall on New York.
But they do fall all over Israel: on Sderot, Tel Aviv, the Northern District, Kfar Saba. They fall on a daily basis. Every week, every month. And for someone who lived in Israel for three years, calls Israel home, and still has her closest friends there this kind of worry goes on every day. And it is far from being a personal thing - every single person who has anyone they care about living in Israel worries of the same. Wakes up the same, goes to bed thinking the same, praying for the same. Yesterday was especially a bad day because for me it hit (quite literally) close to home. And these are the moments when you realize that no one chooses exactly where the rocket is going to fall, the shooter somewhat points towards an area, but there is no certainty as to where it is actually going to land. And had it landed somewhere else, somewhere close, you realize that it could have been your house, or your friends, your parents’, uncles’, grandparents’ and so on. By the hand of God, you were spared, but some other family was not. And while you finally inhale realizing that everyone you know is safe, you know all too well that someone else, in some other part of the world, or perhaps close to you, is going through what you just escaped. But most worryingly, you know that there will be a next time, and the anguish starts again.
You don’t read this on the news - when you turn the tv on, in whatever country you are, most probably they won’t say this. But thousands, hundreds of thousands of people across the globe follow closely what is happening in Israel because their loved ones are there. Because they pray every day for them to be safe, to be spared. And if your family member or friends is serving in the Army, add another layer of stress and worry to the mix. Add another prayer before going to sleep and when you rise in the morning. This is the reality of so many people without names and faces, so many extremely worried but exceedingly more strong friends and parents, and siblings, and relatives all around the world. Before you go to sleep tonight, and when your alarm goes off tomorrow morning, put yourself in their shoes. If you cannot imagine what hearing sirens sounding in the middle of the night, at least you can try to identify with a worried mother, father, sibling, friend. We’ve all been concerned for someone we love, sometimes, try to imagine what it means to do so every day - being concerned not for their general wellbeing, but for their lives.
This is a reminder that the media may not publicize it, because we have grown accustomed to thinking of the losses and dramatic events going on in certain parts of the world, but the reality on the ground is by no means easier because people don’t talk about it. Radio silence doesn’t prevent rockets from falling. But this is also a commendation to everyone, in Israel and abroad, staying strong - always, no matter what is (again, literally) thrown at them. Strength and resilience brought us all thus far, they will surely guide us onwards.
[This is dedicated to my friends back in Israel. Your strength inspires me. I love you and I miss you all].
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