Among the horrors of war lay
The most beautiful faces
With the brightest futures
The most loving families
And the best friends
So much life.
Laid to rest and mourned forever by a family that will never be the same.
One after the next.
These soldiers, killed in duty, so often described by the people who loved them in terms of the “light” they brought to this world.
The heartbreak feels bottomless.
The radius shrinking.
It’s hard to gather the strength to put my shoes on and get out the door.
The dog needs her walk.
I lace my boots and I go.
And then…
There we are, in the back pastures of the central Golan Heights – Gd’s backyard.
Another planet.
There’s a group of calves who got off course just ahead of us.
Harley herds them back on track.
The air is crisp and cold.
The sun is shining.
The greens are so bright.
The sky is so big; so many shades of blue.
It is legitimately, heartbreakingly beautiful.
So beautiful it hurts.
The beauty and rightness of nature feels incongruent with the world around me. Around us.
And also, totally not.
Is this all a giant metaphor?
This extended surrealism.
The suspension of certainty.
“Reality” (whatever that is) feels unfamiliar – “lo mukar.”
Unchartered.
It’s sad. Hard. Unforgiving.
I’m learning how to navigate it.
Barely.
A thought occurs to me…
All of this pain
This unknown
This stress
This abyss of hurt.
That’s how we’re gonna learn to be strong again.
Carved from the realness and truth that comes from living through.
That’s how we’re gonna learn how to dance again.
On the banks of our rivers
On the shores of our seas.
With our skirts blowing in the wind.
Tambourines in hand.
Please Gd.
Usher in that world.
Move us in that direction.
Tip the scale towards a better world.
Toward redemption.
Open that road.
Make it a legitimate option.
Make it real.
Let the heartbreaking beauty outweigh the heartbreaking pain.
It’s time.