Shortly afterwards the air raid sirens sounded. I hastily roused my soundly sleeping husband to check on the children and run for the shelter.
Thank God we had put the youngest ones to bed in the shelter. Two of them were snuggled in to duvets at either end of the worn old sofa that just about fit in the small room. Another had made a cosy nest of plush blankets and pillows on the floor. It would have been too complicated to wake or carry three little kids to the shelter in the 90 seconds we have to seek cover before a rocket strike.
My older children had woken as soon as the siren went and were already in the shelter when my husband and I got there, tiptoeing over their sleeping siblings to find space in the cramped claustrophobic windowless underground room.
Mercifully the two youngest slept through the siren, slumbering through the blood chilling howling wail, the thundering and thudding of interceptions and possible strikes.
We'd already had sirens earlier in the evening. Over the last couple of days the pattern has repeated over and over, usually after dark, a few times in the wee hours, us and the older children rushing bleary eyed, still half asleep in to the shelter, checking that everyone is there and shutting the safety door behind us, listening to the war outside only slightly muffled by the shelter's reenforced concrete walls and heavy steel blast door.
My youngest are too young to really understand what's happening, just that there is a bad man in Gaza who is shooting at them. They don't say they are scared, but they are clingier, more unsettled than usual, wanting to stay closer to Imma and Abba.
They are calmed by the knowledge that they know what to do when there is a siren because on the last day of nursery school before all educational frameworks had to be closed their kindergarten teachers did safety drills explaining to them what to do when the alert sounds, how to quickly and safely rush to the shelter, how to protect themselves by lying on the ground with their hands protecting their heads if they are caught out in the open or to seek cover in a stairwell or windowless room if they find themselves in a building without a shelter.
My middle son is old enough to be curious and ask questions, but still too young and innocent to grasp the full horror and danger of the situation. He is a deeply spiritual child, happy to recite Psalms with during the raid, confident in both God and the good people working to protect us from the rockets.
One teen has an understanding of the gravity of the situation, but a mostly calm and practical nature that makes him interested in watching the news and trying to follow the developments. He is concerned but not terrified. Facts and information comfort him.
My oldest though is almost an adult. Highly intellectual and extremely well read she is more than aware of what the war around us means. With each air raid her anxiety grows as the cumulative sleep deprivation takes its toll, overwhelming her usually matter of fact approach to crisis situations. I don't dare give her melatonin or anything else to help her sleep for fear that she will sleep too deeply and I won't be able to get her to the shelter. There is no space for all the children to lie down in the shelter together at the same time.
During the most recent alert I screamed her name across the flat, worried she was deeply asleep and hadn't heard the siren. Usually I keep my voice very calm and soothing, trying to give my children strength and confidence through routinely following the safety protocols, but tonight I was worried that she wasn't coming to the shelter and that I would have to run to the other side of our home to wake her, no way I or my husband would be able to carry an adult sized teen.
But here she was, running pell-mell, half asleep towards the shelter, where she curled up with her hands over her ears on to the nest of blankets on the floor next to her slumbering youngest sibling. Outside the siren kept wailing. She begged for quiet, for the children who were awake to stop chattering but at the same time for something to distract her from the situation.
So we started to sing "Shir La Maalot, esah einei el heharim", Psalm 121 to the familiar tune made famous in Israel by the Sheva band, a recording my oldest loves.
A Song of Ascents
I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come?
My help comes from God, Who made heaven and earth
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved
He who protects you will not sleep
Behold, the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers not sleeps
The Lord is thy Guardian
The Lord is thy shade by they right hand
The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night
The Lord shall protect you from all evil
He shall protect your soul
The Lord guard thy going out and coming back for now and forever
And slowly my child calmed as we sang softly, gently, melting away the siren, the bangs and booms outside, shrinking the world down to just us, the children snuggled with their cuddly toys and blankets, the comforting Hebrew words and the familiar tune.
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