Falling From the Sky

I am recovering from 12 days of war and didn’t realize how much fear my body was holding until the threat was over. I ache deep in my bones, crave sleep and more sleep, can’t focus, and walk around dazed. Yet I am also feeling an incredible sense of relief, joy, and wonder.

Horrific damage was done and innocent lives were lost, yet we also experienced many incredible miracles in this precious, tiny country of ours – and yes, it could have been so much worse.

Living in the north, I feel like I am still reeling from Hezbollah rockets that pummeled us until the November 27th ceasefire. Those barrages caused ravaging fires, destroyed homes, and killed innocents including 12 Druze children playing soccer in Majdal Shams. 

When Hezbollah struck, a siren meant we had 30 seconds to scramble for shelter. The Iranian strikes were different; we had a few minutes to grab a cell phone, eye glasses, a bottle of water, and shoes. But when those missiles fell from the sky, the ground quaked as Israel’s defense system went to work high above. 

In our tiny village north of the Kinneret, we were privileged to spend this time with Amir’s sister Liora and her husband Simon. A  ‘quick visit’ from Toronto soon turned into an extended war-time experience. Despite being stranded here with missiles falling night and day, they made the best of the situation and were true heroes. 

We ate freshly harvested farm-to-table meals lovingly prepared by Amir, drank lots, laughed, obsessively doom-scrolled news updates, and spent serious time in our subterranean cobwebby ‘shelter.’

On our way to the shelter each night, we often saw those interceptors looping across the black sky, trying to prevent catastrophe. Arriving in a barrage to thwart the interceptors, those ballistic missiles were seriously terrifying, measuring 15 meters in length and weighing over 1,700 kilograms. One hit could easily level an entire building (and did) and they are precise, landing within 50 meters of target. 

Over those 12 days, Iran launched 550 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel. This meant being shaken out of sleep by a Home Front Command app that pulverized my brain, setting panic through my entire body. We heard this alert several times a night for six nights in a row, scrambling under the house and waiting, not knowing where destruction would land. 

If the missiles’ target was identified nearby, a local air raid siren wailed and I dutifully buried my head in the book of Tehillim, praying for G-d’s protection. Then the shaking booms would begin. When the entire country was lit up on our siren app, I imagined all ten million Israeli civilians sheltered at the same moment. We would wait for an all-clear sound, then file above ground hoping the outside world as we know it was still there. 

One day in the midst of the war, a sweet gift ‘fell from the sky’ as we extracted a tiny abandoned kitten from my dog’s mouth. A tortie cat, her long, soft coat a patchwork of black, cream, and caramel swirled in a tortoise-shell pattern. Torties are considered a sign of good luck; Japanese sailors would never set sail without a tortie aboard. 

With our very own tortie on board, we busied ourselves nursing her back to health. She was a perfect distraction between sirens and as much as we cared for her, she cared for us; there is nothing more relaxing than stroking a purring kitten.

Now that the war is over, we decided to finally give her an appropriate name and call her Levia, the Hebrew word for lioness. This name honors Am K’lavi, the Hebrew name for Israel’s military operation against Iran, the Rising Lion that took its enemy by surprise. 

Simon and Liora made it back to Toronto safely, although their journey to the airport was extremely harrowing. “I’m writing a book,” Simon said after safely arriving in Cyprus. I am now getting a full night’s sleep, although I keep having to remind myself to breathe and stop gripping my jaw.

And then this morning, something else fell from the sky. This time it was a mynah fledgling that fell out of a nest near our house. The mynah is now perched in a crate on my dining room table. 

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked my son-in-law Shaarya. 

“It’s called a zoo,” he answered.