Jul 10, 2008

Identifying details have been changed. My name is Guy, I’m a lieutenant in the reserves. I began the war as a sergeant major and ended it as lieutenant after I was forced to replace my platoon commander, Yossi, who was seriously wounded during the war. Yossi has been my friend since the beginning, since the days of our compulsory service. We’ve been through everything together… From basic training through the disengagement. Then came July 12, 2006. During a break in the class on the nervous system, as part of a course on alternative medicine, I looked at screen of my cell phone and found 19 unanswered calls from a single number. Oshrat, the communications officer, told me that I needed to report as soon as possible. Politely, I said goodbye to everyone, went home, took my duffel bag and went with another friend to the reservists’ supply base. As soon as we reached the gate, I could tell that something was unusual. The doors of the warehouses weren’t locked; they were wide open and bushes were flying out of the warehouses like some wild west movie. Immediately, I understand that something was not right. I was told that because Gilad Shalit had been kidnapped two weeks ago near the Gaza Strip, at Kerem Shalom, there has been an intensified wave of reserve call-ups there and they required a large amount of equipment from the warehouses. Huge amounts of equipment had been transferred to them and we remained without machine guns, without binoculars and without enough ammunition. We went to the Golan Heights and got out of the vehicle. I took two of the guys who were there with me and we began to scramble for equipment. The situation was entirely hallucinatory. In the end, we lacked only night-vision binoculars. I found two in the Ricochet camping goods store at Golani Junction and the remainder at a mall in Haifa. Just imagine the Ricochet store in the Grand Canyon mall: several dozen soldiers wandering around with lists of equipment in hand, trying to fill in the equipment they were short… The day I went to Haifa was the day that the missiles landed on the railroad workshop. That’s how the war began, with the feeling of the last moment. We entered Lebanon on July 24, in the Bint Jbeil sector. The main purpose was to play with them for couple of days after the Nasrallah had been there and gave its spider web speech. At 6:00 a.m., we went down to our positions and a barrage of 40-50 Katyushas (it looked more like a thousand) rained down on us from three different directions at once. Two hit my tank and Yossi the platoon commander’s tank took four hits. He was more exposed and damage was greater. Yossi was holding the machine gun himself and a missile fell exactly on his MAG, plucked his hand and injured him seriously in the face. I’ll spare you a description of the horrors. I’ll just say that I was forced to see my old friend injured very badly. We managed to get out of there. I reached Yossi when he was in a state of foggy consciousness, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. I asked him where his hand and he sent me to the front of the tank… I call the armed personnel carrier to evacuate him. I took command of the platoon and continued the battle throughout the day. After approximately one week, we were transferred to the eastern sector and remained there until the end of the war. We reached the last days of the war… Until then I thought that when it happened in Bint Jbeil was the worst it could be. In every war, there is one battle that stands out from all the others, a foundational event for that war that continues to accompany the people who participated in it until the end of their days, until the DNA of that generation dies out. In the War of Independence, it was the battle for Latrun; in the Sinai Campaign, the Mitla Pass; in the Six-Day War, Rafah; in the Yom Kippur War, Emek Habacha and in the Second War in Lebanon, it was the Saluki, the final chord of the battle. We went out on the offensive, they called us back. We went out on the offensive again and they called us back again. The third time they give is a prescription for a sort of accelerated battle, Operation Changing Direction… At this stage, we understood the direction from which we were to approach the Saluki valley. An operation that was supposed of taken a week was reduced to 96 hours and from there, to 72 hours. In the end, they gave us 60 hours, until 8:00 a.m. on Monday when the cease-fire was supposed to take effect. It was clear to us that it was going to be a cease fire. We’re not kids, we know how to interpret what is being said. Throughout the entire time, we were saying to ourselves, if only we had a father who was worried, who supports us. We’re not going into this battle for nothing because it was clear to us that there would be casualties and we know there’s going to be a cease-fire… as long as they’re with us, whatever happens they should just know that we’re doing this, that we’re doing everything that will bring the results they want. We entered the battle. At the very beginning, two of our tanks were damaged… As we approached the cliffs above the Saluki’s very steep streambed, missiles and mortars began to fall on us from all four directions. The entire perfumery. Everything in the air around us smelled burnt. When a Katyusha lands, its not a Qassam. This wasn’t one or two; I’m talking about a barrage of 200-300 mortar shells. You feel like you’re in the middle of a frying pan with eggs bubbling in tomato sauce all around you – but it’s the ground, it’s not tomatoes! It’s as if mother Earth were opening her mouth to swallow… In this tale, more people and more tanks were injured. And then they charged us, all at once, from every hole, like moles. As soon as someone understood what was happening, he shouted over a radio to close the tanks. We closed the tanks. They climbed on our tanks, wherever we looked, we saw them. A terrorist armed with a knife climbed up my tank and tried to bang on the panel near me. It was clear what he wanted he didn’t want to play pick-up-sticks. He was having a problem with the handle that closes the panel. He tried to open it and I fought against him. We started firing both machine guns in order to sweep him off the tank. The machine guns didn’t help so we fired a shell in order to get rid of him. It was evening. It was morning. The tanks took hits… In the meantime the shelling stopped. If the shelling stops in the middle of an evacuation, it must mean something. The only reason to stop shelling is to gather up the dead, the captives. This is not a good story now, it is very “not good.” From the direction of the damaged tank, I suddenly saw a burning torch running a hundred yards from me. I grabbed my head and shouted, “He’s burning, he’s burning!” I jumped on him from below, threw him down in the sand and extinguished him. We were able to force four terrorists to surrender. They lay sprawled out on the ground. As we were going from one to another, I turned my back on Yoav and then I heard a noise. I turned around and I saw the one of the terrorists standing up, a knife in his hand. In a split second, I understood that if I did not jump and stab him, he would stab Yoav. I ran to him and shoved a bomb in his face with a rifle butt. He collapsed on the ground and Yoav flew sideways. I jumped him and we started a fistfight. I wrapped my hands around his neck and strangled him, until he died. It was not like observing a squad of terrorists from 2200 yards. It was seeing the whites of his eyes and feeling the warmth of his breath. It was hearing him scream, “No, no, no, my son, my son.” He had a child at home and we were both soldiers. I am civilian and he, I later learned, was a Lebanese lawyer and a Hezbollah reservist,  registered with the Bar Association in Damascus. I strangled him with my own hands and it was not easy. It’s not easy to strangle a person. Not technically, not physically and it’s very definitely not good. It’s not good afterwards, either. There is a very heavy price to be paid for something like this, a very heavy price.   We returned to Israel through the good fence. Something like five in the morning, everyone lit up a cigarette and sat on the tank. Anyone who ever served the Tank Corps knows that it is forbidden to light a cigarette on the tank. We all smoked, everyone, myself included. We sat there and talked from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. We were no longer the same people, no longer the same teams, no longer the same commanders. There was a type of maturity in the way we behaved, in the way we walked. We’re not 19-20 year old children. We all have families, we’re married with children, some are students. Each one brought understandings from life, everyone brought his abilities. They asked me how we can go forward, how can we continue on from here. I said that we would live one day at a time and we would get through this. It would take two years, five years, but we would get through it. We’ll live, we’ll go back to work, we’ll go back to paying taxes, we’ll pay the television licensing fee and we will live. We’ll eat, drink and laugh. We’ll raise our children and help one another and everything will be okay. Even though we were a family before, now we are one in every way. There is no bond stronger than a group of people who have been through a war together, this is a connection that cannot be described. It is a feeling like a parent and a child, something like that. My wife and I had been trying to get pregnant for a while. It was not easy… It turns out that it can take time and then there was a war. We tried for approximately two years. When I returned, it was not easy for me to disconnect from everything and return entirely to my routine. Personally, I didn’t have too many choices and I went back to business, returned to the circus of creating income, forced myself to sleep at night. It took six months until I could eat chicken again. I couldn’t stand the smell of a barbecue. Even now, I can’t. When we visited friends on Independence Day after the war, I went home in the middle. Its not like me to leave a party in the middle but I couldn’t stand the smell. I was very short of sleep. Both the amount of sleep and the quality just weren’t what they should be. In my opinion everyone went through this. It’s a very difficult feeling. I’m not a person to call something “difficult,” I’d rather say its “not easy.” That’s what they taught me in the Tank Corps. They said, “don’t say, ‘it’s difficult,’ say, ‘it’s not easy.’” But it was difficult. I didn’t know what to do. On one hand, I returned to routine. A person, a civilian, I wanted to return to routine, to raise children, and live with my family. There’s no question more basic question than this and it seems to me if people don’t value routine enough but routine is something very blessed, very secure. Then my wife became pregnant and, obviously, I was very happy. I said to myself, that I wasn’t completely wrecked. I started to feel… despite the pregnancy that was developing, or actually because of it, because I knew there would be a child and I knew how things can affect a child and I didn’t want the war to affect him badly… It’s not his fault his father went to the war… I told myself that I wouldn’t let that happen to me. I would not be one of those men who scream in the middle of the night. I would not do that to him and to the children that come after him. I picked up the telephone and called the NATAL Hotline. I did not know where to start, what to say. How do I start talking on the telephone, to someone  don’t know, who doesn’t know me, who doesn’t know what I went through in the war or about Yossi or terrorist or the child on the way? How do you start explaining to someone on the other end of the line, who hasn’t been through what you’ve been through, this tragedy, the human tragedy called war. People don’t need to experience war. It’s bad, you never laugh after war, you always cry. It’s not good for anyone, not good for us and not good for them. I called NATAL and to my surprise it was very good, very positive. I immediately felt that the woman who answered knew exactly how to approach the issue and what to say, like a good counselor. If there were a war now, I would take her along, to stay in the back corridor and every so often we could go down and talk and she could give me some tips for the soul and morale. It was a refreshing change to speak with a person like this, because the people around me was not very supportive. The entire administrative environment was not supportive. There were things that bothered me and some still bother me. It’s possible they will bother me for my entire life. There are pictures and odors. Anything can make me jump. For example, two months ago there was a storm, a very forceful lightning storm and a lighting bolt hit our building. That strike was not good for me. Afterwards, my sleep was disturbed for three weeks. That lightning pushed a button that activated odors and sounds from the war and I began to remember. It reminded me of the whole story from the beginning, with flashbacks, all of the bitterness, the anger, the attitude, the difficult experiences, the battles and ambushes, their advance, our advance, we ambush them and they ambush with us. I was reminded of everything. The question is, how do you deal with it. At NATAL, I receive guidance about how to deal with things, tools for coping, all of my fears about my image have evaporated. Any person can seek out external help. It’s not an embarrassment. Talking on the telephone is not embarrassing. Talking with NATAL is not embarrassing. It doesn’t detract from your self-worth, it increases it. Today, I understand how important it is to talk about what I experienced there. You can dig a hole in the ground and shout all of your emotions into it. You can talk to the dog. But for feedback, for that extra touch, you need a person. That’s what I found at NATAL.

pnina

Oct 28, 2008

Pnina lost her mother and eldest daughter in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem    Bereavement is an experience of loneliness. Great loneliness.   One has to avoid using too many words with people, because the feeling is a burden on the listener. A person who hasn’t experienced loss can never step into the shoes of a bereaved person, for whom one day follows another, with no relief for his pain. Time, unfortunately, does not heal. It only teaches one to live with the pain. The memories shoot through you, the loss is as acute as it was on the first day, and it rises up again at events, at festivals, experiences, ceremonies, at parties, and even in the middle of mundane routine.   It’s a scar that accompanies a bereaved person until the end of his life. Hence the constant need to share it, where possible, with those who have enjoyed better fortune but who are still able to listen.   Bereavement is individual. It cannot be compared or calmed within a support group – even with others who have lost the same biological relation.   Everyone has lost a unique world – different in its essence, its nature, its growing up, the depth of its bond with the person who has lost it, and in the experience of its torturous absence.   So I will speak for myself and about myself:   My mother and my daughter were the center of my life. My mother was a sterling character; attentive to me and also to everyone else, with infinite giving and warmth. I miss her each and every day, and especially in times of crisis. My eldest daughter was my greatest pride; the epitome of inner and outer beauty, curious to learn and with sharp understanding.   She was only five years old, but already a talented ballet dancer, and actress. She loved to sing and to express herself, she loved to live. A budding flower that had begun to sprout petals, showing the world its beauty – and cut down forever.   With their loss, I fell to pieces. I needed huge strength to gather myself up and to continue on the path set down for me by my mother and father: love of the land of Israel and the people of Israel, and taking care of the family.   Daily life turns into a challenge; No more support, nothing to lean on But me Myself.

”

In my painful silences and in my moments of sadness, in the aches that my body spoke and expressed – you, with your listening, your patience and your tolerance, gently asked and inquired whether you could help. I sensed and felt how much you were with me during the time that we had, and beyond. You have the power to reach a person’s soul, and every time I discovered this anew – how you were able to see my inner “me” while I could not see it, while I told you about all of my life’s sad experiences and about long periods of suffering.

 

You listened, and tears flowed from your eyes while I could no longer cry. You cried for me and I felt you, how you were a partner in my pain, and if there is anyone in this world who wanted, at that moment, to take the moments of suffering and pain from me, it was you – you who know how to listen, patiently. With every fiber of your being you where there for me, by my side, even when our meeting was at an end.

 

There were other meetings, too – different ones, with much joy and just a little sadness. Always, you had the ability to show me a different perspective on things.

 

You shared your reality with me, too, and then I learned that those who come to give also have a life story – no less painful, and that if we so choose, it is possible to change a way of life and a way of thinking, and to arrive at different places, places that are better for ourselves.

 

What we invite upon ourselves, at different points in life, does indeed come knocking on our door and on our head; it comes to tell us something. If you were once hurt, then you have the power to get up and to live anew. You have powers – get up and discover them. If you were hurt again, this time more severely – you fall, and all of your inner strength falls with you. You become submerged in a world that is different from what you know; you feel the pain in your bones. You live on pills so that you can maintain some sort of sanity, which actually isn’t real sanity. Until the next hurt – this time from someone who, as I see it, is witness to my writing these words; the man who manages to continue causing such hurt that I understand now, better than ever before, why I made the choice of getting up and saying, “No more”. No more will a person like this be part of my life. I prefer death to pain from a person who, at that time of our lives, was my entire world, and who hurt me and left me with scars so painful that to this day, when I write to you, it’s hard for me to breathe.

 

But – as you have come to know me – I continue.

I continue to live life as it should be, and I can tell you that for some time I’ve been filled with the joy of tiring, calming activity. I chose to leave the kindergartens and to find work close to home. I’m currently caring for 5-month old twins, all week, and I’m finding enormous satisfaction in raising two amazing, beautiful girls. They fill my days and give me much joy with their smiles, and even with their tears.

 

As to my own daughter, I bought her a piano, and she’s learning at home. She’s showing amazing, surprising progress; she has a very good teacher. There’s excellent chemistry between them, and it’s wonderful to see my Tamar happy.

 

I’ll write to you again after I’ve learned to stop waiting for Mondays (home visit days). I sometimes feel that I’m still experiencing separation, that I’m not yet ready to let go, and that’s why on Mondays, while I’m waiting, I run your visits through my mind; I sit in the same chair and converse with myself until I get tired and part from the time and from Monday, and continue with the day after.”

 

14.12.07

 

 

“For me, work brings some balance into a life that I get sucked into. When evening comes I’m still looking for quiet – not just the quiet that’s inside my house, but quiet in my body and soul. Sometimes I can touch it, sometimes not, but I’m learning that there are other ways of feeling that quiet, which also brings with it the calm and tranquility that I seek with all of my being. Sometimes I find in a song that I hear on the radio, or in reading the Song of Songs, or a chapter of Psalms, or a book to which I am drawn once again – that quiet that calms every part of me.

 

So you can understand from my letters that I continue on my way with the hope that one day I’ll get to a place where I’ll feel that there’s nothing to fear, because whatever God prepares for us – and we for ourselves – ends up happening, one way or another.

 

Dina, I’m writing to you and telling you what’s happening with me, and I always think about what’s happening with you – how you’re feeling and where the gift has moved on to, and who you’re visiting every week and causing to feel that which you caused me to feel during every one of our meetings.

 

So, until the next letter, I’ll say goodnight – and, actually, good morning.”

 

12.04.08

 

 

 

“This evening, after I returned from going out with Tamar, I sat down to watch a show by Boaz Sharabi on Channel 2. The show was recorded at the amphitheater in Caesaria, and in between the songs and the words there were moments when I felt so alone, and there were moments when I could hum along, and moments that moved me to tears and brought up memories of the past. And there was a sharp stab to the heart, and at that moment there was no-one by me with whom I could share my feelings. This is something that’s difficult for me, each time over again, because life is going by and there are many stations where I feel that I already need more. I hear the songs that say, “You still love me”, “Giving your soul and your heart”, “I’m alright; no-one dies of love anymore” that flow through my veins together with the tunes and reach the deepest places. It’s not easy to have these experiences of aloneness, but that’s life and I go on living, and with all of that – you’re always with me.

                                                                                                        

See, I’m writing to you and telling you about what’s happening with me, and I always stop for a moment to think what you would say about my pain, my feelings…

 

Pesach has already passed, and Purim before that. It was a difficult time. All of the explosions going off took me back to the difficult times, and I had to take pills so that I could calm down and be more balanced, and at least sleep a few more hours, to be able to get up for another day of work.

 

Yours, Ora.”

 

20.04.08

 

 

The volunteer who undertook the house visits speaks:

 

The caller made contact after having suffered a very serious injury, when a bus exploded next to her in Jerusalem. She and her infant daughter were injured. She underwent a series of operations, was rehabilitated, and went back to work.

 

A year later, there was another terrorist attack in the same area. This time she was not injured, but the original trauma returned. As a result, her situation deteriorated: she stopped working, separated from her husband, shut herself in her home, couldn’t sleep, suffered pains throughout her body, images kept coming back and replaying themselves in her head, severe depression.

 

After several sessions via the NATAL telephone hotline, she was offered some home visits, with a view to alleviating her loneliness and helping her to get back to living.

 

I visited her for two years, once a week, for two hours each time. At first the visits were at her home; afterwards we would go out together to a park or for a walk.

 

I found a woman who is beautiful, intelligent, with broad horizons, but extinguished, huddled within herself, devoid of energy. The only spark of light in her life was her daughter.

 

In our meetings and our conversations, I felt great empathy towards her. I brought listening and containment for what she was and for the place where she was at this point in her life. I lit up corners and angles of thinking that she had not previously been capable of seeing, and slowly the outside world opened up to her and her inner world began to emerge. She connected with her strengths, refused to despair at every setback, her eyes started to smile again, and she was able to laugh. She went back to work, went out to attend lectures, began volunteering at her daughter’s school, and forged new social ties.

Light came back into her life – slowly and intermittently.

 

An example of the change and development that she underwent is evident in her own words: “… And the truth is that this time I allowed myself (to be submerged), because I know that I’ve suffered setbacks before, and from there I rose up high…”.

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  In my painful silences and in my moments of sadness, in the aches that my body spoke and expressed – you, with your listening, your patience and your tolerance, gently asked and inquired whether you could help. I sensed and felt how much you were with me during the time that we had, and beyond. You have the power to reach a person’s soul, and every time I discovered this anew – how you were able to see my inner “me” while I could not see it, while I told you about all of my life’s sad experiences and about long periods of suffering.

 

You listened, and tears flowed from your eyes while I could no longer cry. You cried for me and I felt you, how you were a partner in my pain, and if there is anyone in this world who wanted, at that moment, to take the moments of suffering and pain from me, it was you – you who know how to listen, patiently. With every fiber of your being you where there for me, by my side, even when our meeting was at an end.

 

There were other meetings, too – different ones, with much joy and just a little sadness. Always, you had the ability to show me a different perspective on things.

 

You shared your reality with me, too, and then I learned that those who come to give also have a life story – no less painful, and that if we so choose, it is possible to change a way of life and a way of thinking, and to arrive at different places, places that are better for ourselves.

 

What we invite upon ourselves, at different points in life, does indeed come knocking on our door and on our head; it comes to tell us something. If you were once hurt, then you have the power to get up and to live anew. You have powers – get up and discover them. If you were hurt again, this time more severely – you fall, and all of your inner strength falls with you. You become submerged in a world that is different from what you know; you feel the pain in your bones. You live on pills so that you can maintain some sort of sanity, which actually isn’t real sanity. Until the next hurt – this time from someone who, as I see it, is witness to my writing these words; the man who manages to continue causing such hurt that I understand now, better than ever before, why I made the choice of getting up and saying, “No more”. No more will a person like this be part of my life. I prefer death to pain from a person who, at that time of our lives, was my entire world, and who hurt me and left me with scars so painful that to this day, when I write to you, it’s hard for me to breathe.

 

But – as you have come to know me – I continue.

I continue to live life as it should be, and I can tell you that for some time I’ve been filled with the joy of tiring, calming activity. I chose to leave the kindergartens and to find work close to home. I’m currently caring for 5-month old twins, all week, and I’m finding enormous satisfaction in raising two amazing, beautiful girls. They fill my days and give me much joy with their smiles, and even with their tears.

 

As to my own daughter, I bought her a piano, and she’s learning at home. She’s showing amazing, surprising progress; she has a very good teacher. There’s excellent chemistry between them, and it’s wonderful to see my Tamar happy.

 

I’ll write to you again after I’ve learned to stop waiting for Mondays (home visit days). I sometimes feel that I’m still experiencing separation, that I’m not yet ready to let go, and that’s why on Mondays, while I’m waiting, I run your visits through my mind; I sit in the same chair and converse with myself until I get tired and part from the time and from Monday, and continue with the day after.”

 

14.12.07

 

 

“For me, work brings some balance into a life that I get sucked into. When evening comes I’m still looking for quiet – not just the quiet that’s inside my house, but quiet in my body and soul. Sometimes I can touch it, sometimes not, but I’m learning that there are other ways of feeling that quiet, which also brings with it the calm and tranquility that I seek with all of my being. Sometimes I find in a song that I hear on the radio, or in reading the Song of Songs, or a chapter of Psalms, or a book to which I am drawn once again – that quiet that calms every part of me.

 

So you can understand from my letters that I continue on my way with the hope that one day I’ll get to a place where I’ll feel that there’s nothing to fear, because whatever God prepares for us – and we for ourselves – ends up happening, one way or another.

 

Dina, I’m writing to you and telling you what’s happening with me, and I always think about what’s happening with you – how you’re feeling and where the gift has moved on to, and who you’re visiting every week and causing to feel that which you caused me to feel during every one of our meetings.

 

So, until the next letter, I’ll say goodnight – and, actually, good morning.”

 

12.04.08

 

 

 

“This evening, after I returned from going out with Tamar, I sat down to watch a show by Boaz Sharabi on Channel 2. The show was recorded at the amphitheater in Caesaria, and in between the songs and the words there were moments when I felt so alone, and there were moments when I could hum along, and moments that moved me to tears and brought up memories of the past. And there was a sharp stab to the heart, and at that moment there was no-one by me with whom I could share my feelings. This is something that’s difficult for me, each time over again, because life is going by and there are many stations where I feel that I already need more. I hear the songs that say, “You still love me”, “Giving your soul and your heart”, “I’m alright; no-one dies of love anymore” that flow through my veins together with the tunes and reach the deepest places. It’s not easy to have these experiences of aloneness, but that’s life and I go on living, and with all of that – you’re always with me.

                                                                                                        

See, I’m writing to you and telling you about what’s happening with me, and I always stop for a moment to think what you would say about my pain, my feelings…

 

Pesach has already passed, and Purim before that. It was a difficult time. All of the explosions going off took me back to the difficult times, and I had to take pills so that I could calm down and be more balanced, and at least sleep a few more hours, to be able to get up for another day of work.

 

Yours, Ora.”

 

20.04.08

 

 

The volunteer who undertook the house visits speaks:

 

The caller made contact after having suffered a very serious injury, when a bus exploded next to her in Jerusalem. She and her infant daughter were injured. She underwent a series of operations, was rehabilitated, and went back to work.

 

A year later, there was another terrorist attack in the same area. This time she was not injured, but the original trauma returned. As a result, her situation deteriorated: she stopped working, separated from her husband, shut herself in her home, couldn’t sleep, suffered pains throughout her body, images kept coming back and replaying themselves in her head, severe depression.

 

After several sessions via the NATAL telephone hotline, she was offered some home visits, with a view to alleviating her loneliness and helping her to get back to living.

 

I visited her for two years, once a week, for two hours each time. At first the visits were at her home; afterwards we would go out together to a park or for a walk.

 

I found a woman who is beautiful, intelligent, with broad horizons, but extinguished, huddled within herself, devoid of energy. The only spark of light in her life was her daughter.

 

In our meetings and our conversations, I felt great empathy towards her. I brought listening and containment for what she was and for the place where she was at this point in her life. I lit up corners and angles of thinking that she had not previously been capable of seeing, and slowly the outside world opened up to her and her inner world began to emerge. She connected with her strengths, refused to despair at every setback, her eyes started to smile again, and she was able to laugh. She went back to work, went out to attend lectures, began volunteering at her daughter’s school, and forged new social ties.

Light came back into her life – slowly and intermittently.

 

An example of the change and development that she underwent is evident in her own words: “… And the truth is that this time I allowed myself (to be submerged), because I know that I’ve suffered setbacks before, and from there I rose up high…”.

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B.A.B.

Dec 2, 2008

I was volunteering with Magen David Adom at the time. I was a young shift manager – not even 18 years old, but sufficiently motivated to do anything. It was a Friday, we were at home, tidying up and getting ready for Shabbat. Suddenly the windows rattled, there was a huge explosion – a very loud noise that shook our house. And then the silence… long, endless, as though in a single instant it had swallowed up all the oxygen, all of existence and life. The wailing of cars. My brother and I grabbed our coats, gloves, first-aid bandages, just in case, and we ran blindly into the darkness.   People lying everywhere, tough policemen with a lost look in their eyes trying to push back the onlookers, and screams and crying and unidentified parts. The remnants of a bus and the collapsing frame of a bus-stop and a hand, on the steps, severed. Help me! Help me! And helpless fear. What do I do now? And a wall, sealed up. It’ll be okay. Water, rinse it off, no bandage, we’ll stop the bleeding, it’ll be okay. What does one do? What, what to do? Take him; come, get up with me, don’t worry – I’m holding you, yes, to the ambulance. Come, it’ll be okay. And we drive, and unload shreds of people, and register the injured who have been taken into the trauma unit, no details, three have gone in. Walk home. Overwhelmed. Wanting to scream – what is this hell???? Why??? Where are You? Why? Stop walking, stop smiling, stop yourselves. Two kilometers from here, hell has opened up. Cry out, people; go crazy. How is it that you carry on? Hell has opened up – can’t you smell? The windscreen wipers are broken, vision is limited, there’s hatred and fear and terror, and death.   At home, the smell of every type of food recalls the horror. After Shabbat, the images cut from inside: the hand, that was a real woman, and that lump next to it – the stomach? The chest? Her body? She was really here, she was really alive, and now she’s gone… That face accompanied me for months, and the smell – God, the smell – I couldn’t eat anything. Helpless. It was scariest inside the mall: don’t crowd together, don’t smile, a week ago I saw Hell open in front of me; run away…

Sapir

Jan 13, 2009

On Monday, Dec. 29th, at about 11:35pm, a Grad rocket fell next to my house. My story starts with the fact that I really didn’t expect or think that they’d want to or manage to reach my town. That same day I even laughed about it and said, “What if they aim a Qassam here? It will take one look at this city and go back to Gaza!” Without any warning siren, the missile exploded next to us.   I was awake, getting stuff ready for school, sitting at the computer. My parents had gone upstairs to sleep, and my brother was in the living room watching the news. Suddenly there was a huge explosion! I cannot describe the “boom” that I heard. I was frightened and cried out. My dad took me to the shelter that we have in our house, and I cried for at least half an hour. Friends and family were calling me, but I couldn’t answer the phone because in the shelter there’s no reception. The TV and the Internet were cut off. My mom brought her portable computer into the shelter so that we could log on to the Internet and see what was going on – but there was no way of connecting. At that moment I felt that there was no hope, that no-one was protecting me, that my home was no longer my shelter.   We opened the window a little and saw lots of smoke. My mom went outside and returned after 5 minutes; she said that the missile had landed right here, in our neighbors’ house. I started to cry, and my brother and everyone else were really worried. My mom couldn’t hear in one ear, because of the noise of the explosion. The room that was her workroom was destroyed. Everything had fallen off the shelves and broken, and some of the windows in the house were also shattered.   Everything I’ve told you up to now, happened within only 10 minutes. After that, my mom said, “Come, let’s go out.” It was raining hard outside. I went out and saw the Home Front. They said that there had been more rockets, and so we had to stay in a protected space. My dad took us to an aunt who has a basement that’s all one big reinforced room. We got there still crying and frightened. There we managed to answer all of our calls and my uncles from Ashkelon spoke with me and told me to calm down, and that everything would be okay.   The next day I returned home with my mom, to fetch clothes and stuff so we could continue staying with my aunt. I saw the house that the missile had struck, and I was shocked. Only then did I realize how close it had come to us… that moment I realized that God had helped me and my family; that it was a miracle that the window under which my parents had been sleeping, had not shattered. I was really afraid to enter the house. I went in, did everything I had to do quickly, and came out. I felt bad; I felt that I wanted to go back to my aunt.   Today it’s already about two weeks since this happened, and I’m still at my aunt. I’m not so afraid to go home any more, but my dreams remind me of what happened. Until now I haven’t told anyone; I was afraid that they’d laugh at me, but the truth is that now I’m really not afraid. Sometimes I get a little nervous when there’s a siren, but I say, Thank God there’s a siren.   I’m ready to be strong for our country! So we can have quiet!   Wishing everyone a quiet day : )

Yaffa

Jun 22, 2009

I am sleeping. I dream that a terrorist is chasing me with a long knife, trying to kill me. I escape. I awaken, sweating, my heartbeat is racing. My heart won’t stop racing. I go to work. I feel like I’m being suffocated and it’s hard for me to breathe. My whole body is shaking, out of control. I try to concentrate but I feel nauseous. I try to relax, take a pill and wait for it to pass. Let there be a few more hours of quiet until the next panic attack.   Over seven years have passed since the attack. The terrorist didn’t manage to set his explosives off. There were no fatalities and no one was injured physically. But since then I have been suffering from anxieties that have only worsened. I don’t feel safe anywhere. People don’t understand what an emotional wound is. I have to struggle to keep functioning and I feel so alone. I have loads of friends, but when it’s hard for meI have no one. When it’s hard for me I am alone.   I see the world outside so beautiful and pleasant: Blue skies, trees, flowers, birds. But the world within me is not as beautiful as the world outside. The world within me is black, full of fear and death and a bottomless anxiety with no end in sight. I need to use all my strength to survive. It is hard for me to be strong when I’m shattered inside. Sometimes life looks so black. An infinite darkness of coping and hardship and frustration.   From within this darkness, Mikie, the Hotline volunteer from NATAL, is like a small shining star which lights the way. When I feel that I have no strength to go on, she supports and strengthens me. When it’s hard for me, she reminds me that I am strong enough to go on. When I didn’t know how to even understand these problems that fell upon me, she helped me find ways to relax and supported me in the fight to be recognized by the National Insurance Office. After six years of being unable to, she managed to help me learn to stay home alone at nights. She always reminds me to focus on the things I have managed to do. Even when I fall again and again, she never gives up on me.   Thanks to her I have managed to cope with therapy and to succeed in it. I work (as a volunteer) all the time between hours of light and beauty and peace and between hours of stress and discomfort.  I work so much, to the point where I feel completely detached. And within this detachment, for already two years now Mikie has been providing me with a stable base. I continue to struggle to enable myself a happier and calmer life, and the journey is long.   I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to Mikie and to NATAL for the continued support which keeps me alive and gives me the strength to continue.