Being in Israel, final post, by Barbara Chalom

Wednesday, April 10 - Friday April 12, 2024

Wednesday morning we headed to the north. I expected to hear the explosions in the distance as I did in the south, but we did not encounter that again. We went to a restaurant owned by a Druze Israeli named Basma, who is an IDF widow (he husband died serving in 2015 after 13 years in a coma) but has continued to give back to IDF soldiers by making meals for them and donating them to troops in the north. The first time she did it she saw a few soldiers off to the side that could not eat them because her food was not kosher. So she had her own kitchen and her restaurant’s kitchen kashered. What an incredible person. We make meals and wrote cards together to go in them and packed them all up. Different soldiers came by from different troops to pick them up. The tension in the north is a at a peak right now and I could see it, especially on the younger soldiers faces. 

When we returned to the hotel, we heard from an adoptive family member of a lone solider - a soldier from the U.S. who was kidnapped on 10/7 by Hamas, he had a local family that he was living with at the time. The “adoptive” father has become something of an activist for the hostages and their families and continues to speak out for the release of Edan Alexander, who is from Tenafly, NJ, the same town my brother in law, sister in law and nephews live in. What the families of hostages are going through…what the hostages have and continue to endure… It is truly untenable. He asked that we all consider leaving an empty chair and place setting in honor of a hostage for Passover. 

From there we had free time on our own and I wandered over to a sushi restaurant and had an incredible meal. After that I had expected to write but I just passed out — I could not find the energy to do anything else.

Thursday started at hostage square in Tel Aviv. It is across from their military headquarters as a reminder to those making the hard decisions that these people matter to a great many. The memorials included a little card with messages of hope from children around the world - from Venezuela to France to the US. They were all hanging from different trees. There were tents with family and friends sitting waiting to speak to people about their loved ones that are still being held by Hamas. They were there to tell stories about those taken and to bear witness to the horrible pain their families are enduring. I went from station to station, and I could not stop crying. What else could I do? The whole thing is horrible. To live in a world where this is the new reality. 6 months of being held prisoner. And the reports we are hearing from those held are beyond disturbing. There was a model of a tunnel, the kind some hostages are kept in, to go into. I did it but I knew the whole time I could come right back out. 

From there we went to a tree planting in Neot Kdumim, to the memorial at Ammunition Hill and then to the Kotel. Finally we had about an hour at the Medhane Yehuda before hearing a speaker, the wife of a solider, during dinner. She told us our presence made a difference because what they lost on 10/7 was innocence, trust and peace. We helped with the trust - that it may not be okay now, but it will be okay again. The fact that we have showed up in their time of need, helps build that trust back. The innocence - the fact that her sons, as young as 7 years old, have needed to go to shiva and funerals for friends - that will not return. Peace is what the world wants from Israel but if Hamas is not destroyed, they vowed to do 10/7 again. One of my friends there told me how in the hostage exchange early on, one of the released prisoners is now a top leader for Hamas, so the choice to trade prisoners for hostages has been complicated by that reality. It is a series of choiceless choices. 

I can tell you, no matter how they feel about the current government or the worldwide rise in antisemitism or if the hostages’ freedom should take precedent to the destruction of Hamas or if the most important thing they do is everything to stop Hamas from doing this attack on civilians again - no matter their individual feeling is for any of that - they all feel the burden of conscription. The IDF is made of their children - with the exception of Isreali Muslims, Christian’s and certain far right religious Jewish groups that get exemption - everyone else - the Jews, Druze and Circassian citizens of Israel - their children all go to national service. They are the sacrifice in this tiny country. That burden is theirs to bear. It is one that no one takes likely. 

I guess if I take anyone thing to heart about my experiences there, is that all the players in this are people, just like myself. It may be easier to think in terms of broad stokes but at the end of the day, this is a story made of many individual stories, most of which are very difficult to have heard. It meant something to them that I bore witness to it - that I showed up, did a few things and listened to what they had to say. I am thankful for the opportunity. I know I will not forget it anytime soon. 

Being in Israel, Part Three, by Barbara Chalom

 Tuesday, April 9, 2024

This was a heavy day. We started by going south after breakfast to Mivatchim and heard story after story of 10/7 and what happened that day. The first sites to see were the blacked out spots on the side of the road  - the shadow of what had been a car that was first riddled with bullets and then set fire. There were so many of them.

The moshav we went to help rebuild was called Mivtachim, which was established in 1947 as a kibbutz that was abandoned and in the 1950’s it was rebuilt by Jewish immigrants from Kurdistan as well as Morocco. The current population is like many kibbutzim and moshavim, it is made up of a security force and the small population of residents that would not leave under almost any circumstance. They are not at the point where families with children are returning but we were there to help build, plant, paint - whatever is needed on the day. I spent the day replanting gardens that were run over by tanks and then left to run wild. It was dusty work and by the time we broke for lunch, I was more than ready for a break. During lunch we heard how on 10/7, most of the security force died, but the population was saved by their heroic sacrifice. 

Following this we headed to a more vulnerable community, Ofakim, a town of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, and has a larger ultra-orthodox community than Mivatchim does. This was the site of devastating fighting on 10/7 when the local populace and police force found they had to defend for themselves for a prolonged period of time prior to the arrival of IDF support. We walked through just a small corner of it where nearly every 5th house had an image out of people murdered by terrorists while trying to fend them off. 

Following this we stopped for coffee at a roadside Aroma and there was a memorial to a young lady that had worked there before she was murdered on 10/7. We also met some young soldiers and gave them some of the gift boxes we made the day before. From here we went to the Nova Party site.

It was devastating.

So many people murdered where they stood, ran, tried to hide and so many kidnapped.

I do not have words for how I felt there. 

So much life snuffed out.

An aspect for the survivors was also discussed that many of them had been taking drugs as part of their festival experience- in particular for those that had taken psychedelics, the subsequent psychological devastation has been ongoing. I cannot imagine.

These were people that were the opposite of soldiers outfitted for battle. 

Then we traveled to Urim base where there was live music - the first I have heard in the last 6 months, since my father died - and most of our group was dancing with the soliders there after we shared a meal with them.

The ups and downs of the day left me a bit hollow and per my usual pattern this week, I fell asleep with all my clothes on - dirt, dust and all.

Being in Israel, Part Two by Barbara Chalom

April 7, 2024 was a very different sort of day. Honestly, most of it, I don’t know how to process yet.

This morning I packed up, and after breakfast and a little walk around the Center City of Jerusalem, I was picked up by Yisrael to go to Yad Vashem. He had mentioned he was a tour guide there and so I had said I would like to go back there. I came to Yad Vashem with the Momentum trip I was on the first time I came to Israel in 2017. He had told me no one is really going there right now since tourism is down. He was so right, when we went today, it was virtually empty. There were groups of soldiers and police trainees and a small group of students, but that was all. As we were leaving there appeared to be a tour bus of people from Korea about to take a tour.

It was such a different experience than before as Yisrael pointed out so many things that I had not heard on my previous tour (that does not mean they were not said, I may have just missed them) about the shape and structure of the building and the intention of the architect. We went to a newer exhibit, the book of names, and found the mother of the child that Rebekah was twinned with for her bat mitzvah project. The scale of the horror of the holocaust never fails to move me. It is one thing to know of it, another to see its evidence in front of my very eyes. 

It is such a powerful, sorrowful place.

From there I went with Yisrael to a solider’s funerul at Har Herzel. There are no words for the sorrow expressed by the family there. The wail of his mother when his coffin came into view not to mention the breaking of his father’s voice while saying Kaddish will always stay with me. At some point over the weekend an Israeli reminded me, they do not have a choice, all of their children that are of age have to serve. I had known that before but it is another thing to see people facing this reality in war time. Especially now that I’ve seen soliders that I had met as children. 

After a run in with the official checking tickets on the light rail - long and unimportant story, but to suffice to say I’ve had a good taste of the government’s inefficiencies firsthand -  I finally made it to the train to go back to Ben Gurion airport to meet the JNF group to begin the our trip.

We had dinner and I met a few people - from all over the US - and we had an introduction and overview meeting in the hotel. It was there that I really understood that we aren’t just volunteering in the sense that it is nice that we came here, but it actually has been essential work for the communities that we are assigned to help. In other words, it is not just fluff for a few pictures. We will actually be replacing a workforce that doesn’t exist in Israel right now. On that note I passed out fully dressed once again, exhausted emotionally and otherwise.

______________ 

Monday, April 8, 2024.

After breakfast, which was early, we hopped onto our assigned buses and our group went to Bet Ezra, a farming community that was originally settled by displaced Iraqi Jews, where I worked in a green house to coax cucumber vines to grow upwards by clipping them to a tether coming down from the ceiling. It was hard work for four hours. I will remember to Bless the workers that help bring my food to my table the next time I eat anything grown from the earth.

After four hours of that we were off to Alexander Muss High School and I promptly passed out on the bus. Part of JNF’s current mission is to help those that are continuing to be displaced from the north of Israel, so we were packing gift boxes for soliders we will meet tomorrow with gifts purchased from small businesses from the north. A staff member from JNF spoke about the days after 10/7 and the work that JNF did to get people out of danger and where they needed to go. Of course time after time I hear from Israelis - they were not surprised that they were attacked - but no one understood the scale of what they were facing in real time.

From Muss, after lunch, we traveled to Soroka Hospital. As I was walking in I remembered that a family friend that I used to work with at Suburban Hospital had gone to medical school in Israel. Her grandfather and my mother in law knew each other from Egypt. (We figured this out one night when we were working together.) Since I was walking into a hospital in Israel and I knew she had left the states to go to medical school here I was thinking of her and decided to send her a message.

I heard right back from her, Raquel, and of course, beshert, Soroka is where she is training and she was off today and lives right across the street and within 10 minutes we were reunited. You cannot make this stuff up. Israel. 

Our speaker at Soroka is the head of their Emergency department and he talked to us about 10/7. Just in terms of numbers - 671 trauma patients brought injured in the first 24 hours, 42 of whom where children and 135 were critical - it is unfathmable. People that worked the night shift on 10/6 did not go home. The physician speaking to us had come in, after stopping multiple times for rocket sirens, and did not sleep again until 10/9. He told the story of one pediatric critical care doctor he worked along side for a shift that day. At some point, the doctor had said he had to go check on his community where his wife and children lived. He was murdered on the way there. There were others that were killed and injured from their own hospital because this is the community where they lived, not just where they worked. I heard about the first of many surgeries they did on 10/7 was on a Bedouin woman who had intentionally been shot through the abdomen, which murdered her unborn child. She survived. 

There was a whole slide show. Stretchers full of blood. Piles of belongings. It was what I knew but it was another thing to see. 

We came back to the hotel and ate dinner while listening to a representative speaking to us from the 1 news agency that attempts to gather facts and get press out in Israel - which is a non-profit. As a young woman, she spoke about 10/7 and trying to get press out while seeing photos of her own murdered friends pass before her eyes. She grew up in the U.S. and says she has been unable to maintain many of her friendships there as she has been deemed a colonizer and racist by people she has been friends with for years prior. We live in a time when news can be whatever someone tells you it is. All I will say about this, because it is not the purpose of this blog, is check your sources everyone. Check your sources. 

With that I am exhausted and going to bed. 

Being in Israel by Barbara Chalom, part one.

 Jerusalem on April 5, 2024 - April 6

Briefly to put this post into context: this is still the year of 10/7. There are still hostages (182 days) and an Iranian general was recently killed by the IDF and unfortunately the IDF also killed 7 aid workers with the World Central Kitchen by mistake this week.  (I say all that because it seems important now but the way the world is going, it may just be another group of things that happened this week in a year of profound events that have the ability to shape history.) A hell of a time to come to Israel, in other words. 

Everyone here is living their lives but it is not like when I was here before. My friend is a typical example. One child in the army, another in an educational vocation adjacent to people in the army. Everyone still eats, hugs, loves, needs to go on with the day to day, but in a place still reeling from the 10/7 atrocities, as well as, to a lesser extent, the world’s derision and dismissive reaction to their pain, they now wait to see if the direct attack from Iran will come in the North, as opposed to the indirect attacks by Iranian funded terrorists groups like Hamas. Everyone carries their guns. Many who had finished their service will be called back if they have not already. In this tiny county everyone has been touched by death. The young people here are different than before. Still brusque but kind, still full of life, but also they are shadowed. Older than young people living in freedom should be.

Stepping back to before my trip, I want to share my response to a loved one that, very reasonably asked me to reconsider coming to Israel. Here is some of my response:

Thank you both for being so loving.

I am going, G-d willing. And I should be safe. 

This is hard to describe, because as you both know, I was not born Jewish, but despite that accident of birth, I am 1000% committed to my Jewishness in my soul. Israel is like a home to me and I don’t just support it because it’s the one democracy in the Middle East and a haven for the Jewish people. When I went to Israel the first time, I want you to try to understand that as a Jewish person, to feel what it’s like not to be in the minority in an entire country is truly amazing. A privilege I tried not to take for granted before I converted, but I naturally did. I heard people speaking Hebrew all around me and there’s all kinds of people. People are allowed to be super religious or super gay.  There’s people that agree with the government people that protest against it. There’s kosher food and not kosher food. If I was a younger woman I would volunteer to fight for them. But I’m not. If I was a wealthier woman I would go there for longer and help out in a hospital, but I’m not.  It’s so important to me to do this little bit. Because just as I am too precious to lose, so is Israel. I have always known that when Isaac and I had children, that because they are Jewish, there would be an entire community in the world that would hate them just for that.  To see that hatred on display on TikTok and Instagram with those posts by Hamas on October 7 was a whole other thing. I didn’t really know before because that kind of hate is something that happened in Europe a long time ago. But it has happened now, in our generation. One of my good friends has a daughter is in the army right now. Another friend has two in the army.  Isaac went to school with somebody whose son has already been killed. Our friend in our synagogue has a cousin who was taken hostage on 10/7. What I am trying to say is this is not happening to somebody else. This is happening to us. Every time I see an image of Naama Levy, may she be set free soon, G-d willing, being dragged by her hair, I think “Marcella has those exact same sweatpants. She has that same long curly hair.”

What I’m getting as is that is it’s really important to me that I go. Even if it is dangerous. I will be as safe as possible, never alone always with Israelis or with my mission group and our armed guards. And honestly, it feels empowering to be able to do something even if it’s just a little thing. 

So that happened and I do not know if they got it but I tried. Being actively pro-Israeli as a progressive American feels like screaming into a void. I feel better for having said my peace.  It is difficult that those that could see me seem not to or at worst woke-splain to me how antisemitism is defined by them. The privilege of living in a democracy as I still know Jews on the left and on the right and we can all be friends. I saw similar conversations here in Israel.

But I am jumping ahead.

Thursday morning I set off on my journey arriving in Tel Aviv by morning. After a quick change in the bathroom I set out to meet my dear friend, and apparent celebrity (inside joke, he is a well established comedian), Yisrael Campbell. I took the train into town and it was full of soldiers barely older than my own daughter. When we came upon the site of Jerusalem it took my breath away, as usual, and within a moment before we stopped, I heard a series of clicks: the soldiers loading their ammunition into their guns. 

After confusion at my hostel solved by google translate (sort of) I dropped my bag and met Yisrael to go to Medhane Yehuda market. It was as lively as ever. At least a dozen people stopped us to say hello to Yisrael on the way there, in the shuok anod on our way out. Everyone one off duty carries their weapon. We bought some things and I walked him back towards his home. I set about making my usual trek to a kosher McDonalds because in Israel and I can and grew up loving their chicken nuggets. I go back to my hotel to find a young lady was locked out. After hearing her story I let her in. 

Deana is a 20 something year old who is here from Orlando for a mission trip as well. Like me she came early to spend the weekend in Jerusalem with friends. Someone from the hostel returned and explained to us why there is no staff here. They had been all set to reopen April 1 but with everything that has happened they assumed no one would come. Of course some of us still did, the bull headed Americans. So he helped us get settled and I got ready for Shabbat. I walked about 30 minutes south to the Baka neighborhood (I am in City Center). Meeting Yisrael part of the way, I learned where we were going to dinner.

This is how I found myself with a group of 8 from a reform shul in San Francisco along with their Rabbi and another Reform Rabbi from Los Angeles, a writer from the US, an AgTech leader and his two children, both in the army, a young man finishing 2 years of study in Israel who is a graduate of the same school my children attend, a self described influencer leading a movement to empower Jews of color, all at the Shabbat table of Susan Silverman and Yosef Abramowitz. That was a heady experience to be sure. I met a ton of new people, managed to talk about my novel. The highlight was a tradition I want to bring home which was going around the table to introduce our selves prompted by angel cards. Mine was Abundance, or Shefa. That sounds about right. What an amazing experience to just fall into. 

Typically I plan down to the detail. But this experience has been fluid and full of incredible moments I could not have planned for.

_______

For Shabbat I woke up and after some breakfast and a good lie-in I walked back down to Baka this time to have lunch with Yisrael, his children, including 2 home from the army, his ex-wife and 2 family friends and their son. This meal was predominately in Ivrit, and unable to use my google translate on Shabbat, I waited for intermittent translations. The conversation was of course about what had happened, and what may yet come. The question of whether it would be considered more important to rescue hostages (the Halachic answer being yes no matter the cost) or making sure 10/7 (or 7/10 as it is here) never happens again. Where the fault lay for the atrocities was also discussed and I learned so much from everyone’s frank conversation and input. Yisrael and I then walked back to city center where I am staying and met friends and more friends of friends. Afterwards, I walked back with some new friends to Aroma, near my hotel where they had a coffee and I listened to how it was for each Israeli at the table immediately after 10/7 and how they have been since. At some point someone thanked me for coming to volunteer which felt so tiny compared to what they have lived through and continue to face. I just said “you are welcome” but I had so many more feelings than I could put into words about it.

Afterwards I went back to my hostel, which is a whole experience I have never had before. The same young lady from Orlando was there and we chatted for 30 minutes or so about our decision to come here at this time, our families reactions and what it meant to us. Following that I bumped into the young Italian man that came to Jerusalem last June after living and working in Japan and has been staying at the hostel and helping run it. He davens at the Italian shul across the street and has felt moved to stay through everything.  The first person being secular and the second religious, these were two very different conversations about how we came to be here and why we are here, but the parallels were not lost on me. Love of Israel, a passion to see that Israelis know we, each, are on their side as well as the general wonder and feeling of our soul being lifted just by being here - these were our common ground. 

Following this I walked myself over to the Old City and was at the Kotel for havdalah. This was my 3rd trip here and this time I felt I was bringing something as much as getting something back. It is a powerful, holy place that has always been difficult for me to describe, but I feel everyone should experience it for themselves. It is manna, meaning that to me I get what I need which has been vastly different each time I have been there - even within the same trip.

Following this I stopped a grocery to eat and it was jammed with young people - maybe 9th grade - on a trip from Rockland, NY. They made me miss my own kids - here in Jerusalem with all that is going on and it was all about who could sneak some Celsius into their cart and how many bags of kosher Doritos they could gather in their arms. I walked up to the Paris Square where there is a tent dedicated to the hostages and their families nearby. I met some of my new friends and then we heard speeches from some of the loved ones of hostages and those that had been murdered including a young lady who dedicated a song to her cousin Noya, I am presuming Noya Dan. Using google translate I translated the speeches in real time and was able to follow most of it. The one sign I saw that truly took my breath away was:

קול אחיותי זועק אלי 

My sister’s voice cries out to me.

This group, at least in part transitioned to a march and protest against the current government that moved together complete with drums, bullhorns and placards, to the presidents house. This is apparently something that the families and protesters against the government do every motzei Shabbat. At that point, no longer able to follow the Hebrew because the translator does not work well for chants, I walked back to the hostel and passed out in my clothing having walked 30,000 steps. At 3:30 am I woke up hungry and finished what I had purchased and the store and was then able to talk to Rebekah and my mother in law briefly at home before washing up and going back to bed. What a day.

Sunday, April 7, 2021

It is 6 months today. Six months since my father died and 6 months that innocent people have been in captivity.  A half a year of hell, as they say around here. All over Israel there are signs demanding the release of hostages. On this Israelis seem to be unwaveringly unified. The country longs for the return of their loved ones, now. It is evident everywhere. Yellow ribbons  attached to an elderly woman’s walker, yellow pins adorning the cropped top of a teenage in line for coffee ahead of me. The military and police do not wear anything like that, whether the yellow ribbon, the hostages necklace or any of that. But it is rare to see someone not in a uniform without some type of affiliated adornment. 

Today I am going to Yad Vashem, spending some more time in Jerusalem before I head to Tel Aviv to meet my JNF group. It seems strange I am just at the beginning of this trip, I feel like I have been here forever.

____

Mama’s speech

 May 13, 2023

Rebekah.

First of all, it is truly an honor and a joy to be your mother. You were a sweet baby; an excellent sleeper which was very appreciated at my age. 

As you grew, through your childhood I did worry at times that you might be too sweet for this world. Too quiet to be safe.  I wondered, at times, how would you be heard and seen?

And so how absolutely perfect for this, Bamidbar, to be your torah portion. Your message on the parsha, is of course,  regarding justice and kindness, which is so representative of you. But from my perspective there are 2 essential parts to the story of Bamidbar that relate so perfectly to your growth into a young lady of integrity and strength while addressing my worries for you..

So setting the stage: Bamidbar, which of course literally means, in the desert, is a moment in our people's history of being together, but not having arrived home yet. We were a people not just waiting together; we were in an actual desert, without modern comforts, and with a significant risk of danger - not unlike the world we live in today can be. But we were together and even in a hostile place that helped us grow from whatever hardships we faced. I have seen this in you. While you prefer to endure things quietly and without much complaint, you have grown to learn to lean on your friends, your teachers, your family;  when you need help or comfort. 

The second thing that reminds me of your own journey is, when Hashem instructed Moshe to count the Jewish people, the instruction was שאו את-ראש (se’u et rosh),  to “lift their heads.”  It was that each individual may be intentionally cherished and recognized, not merely counted. As Rashi said, “Because they (the Children of Israel) are dear to Him, G-d counts them often.”

And this is what I have seen in you. I have seen, especially in the last few years, you raise up your head. I have heard you use your voice, share your heart, and demonstrate to the friends and family around you that you cherish them. You may not say everything on your mind, but you do not let an opportunity go by without saying the thing that is most important, often what the other person most needs to hear.

This life and the world we live in can be hostile and there is certainly evil in it. As you know, it has touched our own family directly, just a generation back. So how does one live with a raised head in such a world?

To quote Rabbi and author, Harold Kushner, of Blessed Memory, “Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter.” 

And what better way to live well than to recognize our own significance and to help others do the same. We raise our heads. We help others do the same.  And I see you, Rebekah, do just that. 

Mazal tov, to you, on all of your hard work for this day - but more than that for all the Blessings you bring to each of us, every day, that are privileged to know you.

An unexpected outcome

For Rebekah’s bat mitzvah, she opted to devote herself to a project based around Yad Vashem’s Twinning program. Through Yad Vashem, she was matched with a young girl who died during the holocaust and did not have a bat mitzvah of her own, in order to honor her.

Here are the details of her match and project, which Rebekah posted to a website we created:

https://www.eventcreate.com/e/rivkahneshama

This, in and of itself was a beautiful thing to do, but what happened on the day of Rebekah’s bat mitzvah celebration was unbelievable. Unknown to Rebekah and myself, our Rabbi, Uri Topolosky, had contacted the family of Rebekah’s match, Rivkah Low, who live here in the U.S. 

The day of the bat mitzvah, of course, Rebekah davened and leyned beautifully. Afterwards, Rebekah gave a speech and our rabbi traditionally gives the b’nei mitzvot a gift on behalf of the congregation. In this moment, however, he informed us of a surprise he had in store.

He told us how he not only reached out to Rivkah Low’s cousin but he had talked extensively with him. The cousin, Herb, was informed that Rebekah would be honoring Rivkah with her project and dedicating the day to her.  Herb was so moved and told his entire family about Rebekah, enabling generations of Rivkah Low’s cousins to participate.

In addition, Herb had sent to the rabbi a gift of a beautiful siddur, inscribed with Rebekah’s hebrew names. He also sent a card and a letter full of family pictures and information. Herb, who had submitted the information to Yad Vashem decades ago, told our Rabbi, he wondered what the submission would do - meaning his cousins and aunt and uncle were still gone. And now, here, this young lady, my Rebekah, comes along and honors his cousin with her project of candle lighting and tzedekah in Rivkah’s honor. 

May Rivkah, OBM, along with her parents, her sisters and her brother, may their memories continue to be for a Blessing.

May we all continue to celebrate life together and find connections despite any differences. May we continue to find ways to shine light in the face of darkness.

Rebekah July 2011

 Dearest Little Bek,

There are those who may take offense to the idea that I am older. Too bad. It is my blog and that is part of how this story came to be. So I am older. Not a “young mom” in any case. Definitely not Teen Mom material. Although I can appreciate the episodic befuddlement that is associated with those younger ladies.

In any case, that was what brought about the kindling of an idea that is now you, my second daughter. I thought, I am old. My husband is older. Our parents are even older. All of Ella’s cousins live so far away. One day she will be alone in a house full of cats and will say to herself, why am I an only child? So my parents could take me to Europe once in a while or afford a private school education I don’t really appreciate? Why could I not have a younger sister instead? Then your father really sealed it – he had the nerve to have a heart attack. He is better now, as you well know, but that was the real catalyst. Where some people may see a reason to pack up camp and retire I saw a need to expand. Now I make you sound like a community development project. But, in truth, that was how the idea planted in my mind.

I wanted your sister to have a life long friend and companion. Someone whose flavor and concept of the world was shaped by the same influences and people. Someone that she may love with all the pride and intensity with which I love my little brother. In fact, I thought for sure you were going to be a William, not a Rebekah. (Do not think for one moment that I am disappointed in that. You are you and were meant to be you, as I came to discover…read on.)

As soon as your father and I realized that you were meant to be a part of our lives, you appeared. A little plus sign on a stick. A flickering flash of light on an ultrasound screen. And then, before I knew, it this incredible expansion in my heart takes place. You have taken your place there.

I cannot believe that there can be such an infinite capacity in my heart when my emotions and mentality can be so ordinarily selfish, which is my unfortunate nature. I guess that is why all the great theologians discuss how God is Love. That God lives in the hearts. Because I could never be that infinite on purpose, as much as I may try. But you have done that for me. Just by being.

As a baby you are so easy to smile. People hold you and you smile and they say, “She didn’t just smile, did she? Isn’t’ that early for a “real” smile?” And they look again and you just smile right at them until they know you. Your essence seems to be to smile and be easy going. At least most of the time. You are, after all, only human.

If I was a really talented writer, I could convey so much more clearly how much I love you. But alas, I chose medicine rather than writing. So you will have to close your eyes and try to think of how much one could possibly love and remain a frail human. And that would be it. That is exactly how much I love you.

What started as a cerebral adventure on my part, “deciding” to have a sibling for Ella, brought me right back to our intention. To live by Love. I have a sense now that I decided nothing…no more than I could “make” you come into being. That I was, in all my frail humanity, led to you. As you were meant to be. As you were meant to take residence in our lives and in our hearts.

I cannot, either, describe to you how intensely and thoroughly your sister loves you. She adores you… is always bringing you items of tribute. Everything from her favorite dolls to a fresh diaper to my cell phone. She seems to desire nothing more than to let you know she loves you and is here for you. People tell me, “Oh just wait until later, they will fight and blah blah blah…” I don’t care for all that cynicism. Who cares. Right now is now. And all I can see is Love in this house.

Now your father I think is still in shock at his capacity for love and worry and concern. He seems to have been dazed in a sense, from the moment you both were born. At the same time, he keeps the house together. He makes dinner nearly every day. Practically cleans the house unaided by yours truly. He is our rock. In other words, he is hopelessly in love with all three of us. Even Lila, most of the time.

So that is our story. The story of you and I. Of how we came to be on this day. Today. I thought I was making a practical and important decision. Instead I find that our lives have been thoroughly blessed and altered (once again). I have realized I have been led to you. My littlest bit. Our darling Rebekah.

Now for your name. You were named for my brothers wife, your Aunt Rebekah. She is such an incredible mommy, lady, friend, sister – I cannot wait for you to get to know her. She is warm and loving and incredibly dear and yet strong, vibrant and powerful…Everything any mother would want her daughter to be. She is an example and leader in the world of “mommy” to me. And she is one of the first women in my life that became a dear friend to me. As I hope I am to her. It is a long story, for another day, but I am a late bloomer in the “I have close girlfriends” department.

Your second name is a different story. Caroline is the name for another dear friend. Now my friend’s name is Brigitte and well…it is a nice name but it wouldn’t work for you no matter how much I tried. But her daughter is Caroline. And when Mama and Daddy were seemingly having so much trouble bringing our family (you and Ella) into our lives, Caroline and Brigitte were always there for us. They kept our hope alive. There were times when I would give up inside, truly. I knew you and your sister were out there, in the Hall of Souls, waiting for us. But I began to doubt that your father and I would ever get to meet you in this lifetime. But then Brigitte and Caroline would be there. Caroline would look into my heart and somehow she conveyed your message. I guess because she was closer to The Source. It was like, “Don’t give up, what is meant to be will be in good time”. She and her mommy did that for us. I hope over time you will come to know them and love them as well.

Well back to the now. You are sleeping, for now. So I best shower while I can. I love you dear heart. See you when you wake. And in my heart always,

Mama.