PTSD nation

I'm volunteering round the clock, these days often in agriculture because farms are desperate for help with harvesting and hands on working the soil is also a way to try to shut down the thoughts for a while, even if military jets are roaring overhead and there is the ever present threat as we work in the orchards and fields of being caught out in the open during a rocket attack.

Often there is so much going on I'm not sure what day of the week it is. With all the volunteerism, all the people working hard, we are also a nation deeply traumatised. I don't even know how to begin to describe some of the conversations I've had recently with friends. 

One told me they are terrified that the family will be burnt alive in their home like so many in the Gaza border kibbutzim. Another calls me almost every day terrified they will have to watch their children die at the hands of invading Hamas terrorists.

Another has an outdoorsy teen who has pocket knives for carving wood, foraging wild plants and camping. A good kid, always out with his friends on hikes in the woods or trekking in the desert. He has now put his pocket knives and a couple from the kitchen in their home shelter in case of terrorist incursion. He told his parents that if terrorists invade their home or set it alight he would rather they all kill themselves then be tortured by Hamas or taken hostage like the people from the Israeli Gaza border villages.

More than one person has told me about their nightmares and day time panic attacks from every revving engine or motorcycle, terrified that Hamas terrrorists are invading their home town the way they poured over the border on October 7th.

Many live close to the border with the Palestinian Authority controlled areas (most of Israel is close to a border with PA controlled areas, distances are very short here) and while I reassured them that there is extra security and high alert to guard against a Hamas/Jihadi invasion, in my heart I know that I can't really give her that guarantee, the threat is very real, the stuff of nightmares is real, there are more Hamas cells out there who want to emulate the atrocities of October 7th. 

People here are very resilient, they are doers who respond to crisis and tragedy by wanting to affirm life by helping and doing good. But even so, there are a lot of people who maybe on the surface are managing to function through the day but on the inside are falling apart, tormented by horror films turned reality. 

Everyone tries to support each other however we can. I know many who've invited friends who live alone to stay with them, so they shouldn't have to face the difficult nights by themselves, nights in which every noise is amplified by an eerie silence where every sound is chilling, every odd nightime noise possibly a sign of terrorists digging attack tunnels under the border, every unidentified neighbours' voice in the darkness maybe a sign of a terror incursion. 

And most of us are doing this with children in the house, whether young or adolescent or teens, making sure we are there for them, to help them, to keep ourselves available to be strong, soothing and supportive parents in the middle of this nightmare.

This week many of my teen son's friends were at the funeral for his friend's brother, a soldier who gave his life protecting us from Hamas. This young man was a former Scouts leader (here Scouts is mostly run by older teens) and hundreds of kids who knew him as their Scouts counsellor came to pay their respects, crowded in to Jerusalem's military cemetery in the pouring rain.

Soldiers here aren't killed fighting wars thousands of miles away, but right here, maybe an hour or two drive from our homes, literally protecting their own families from the most unspeakable horrors.

For each funeral, and there have been so very many, local people line the streets in respect, hundreds, sometimes thousands, most of whom didn't know the person being buried, just lining the route of the funeral car to support the bereaved family, often in silence, sometimes with quiet, sombre song.

Our local elementary school has swelled in size, each class taking in refugee children staying in our area, new students from the Gaza border area, but also from the northern border with Lebanon, now also under daily attack from Hizballah in Lebanon.

Some of these children directly experienced the horror of October 7th, some spent days locked with their families in shelters hearing the shooting and pogroms outside. Some have no homes to return to, houses burnt by terrorists or destroyed by rockets.

This week a group of people from my neighbourhood got together to make a joint birthday party for refugee kids staying in our area.Everyone pitched in, party suppliers donated everything from bouncy castles to a cotton candy machine, bakers made decorated cupcakes, make up artists volunteered for face painting and teen girls set up a hair braiding stand. My friend's husband came with his teen kid and put on a juggling show while a martial arts instructor did free workshops and other friends just brought their guitars and drums and improvised a music performance.

We set up in the garden of a catering hall (space donated for free) because it had a shelter. We couldn't risk a park for fear of rockets out in the open. We got lucky. We had a quiet couple of hours with no distant booms, no skies streaked with rocket trails on the horizon. Kids laughed, some of the tight faced, worn looking adults managed to as well, a little of the constant tension eased for just a little bit, like a window on to a life in a time that we can't really recall but which shockingly enough existed less than a month ago.

Like the many small improvised weddings happening all over the country in recent weeks, we are a society that seeks to affirm life, even in one of our darkest hours, to find a chink to let in some light. Thank you for listening.