As this collection is meant to represent what it’s like being ninety, today I’m adding a short but painful piece.
My second son, Benjamin and his wife, Ella, have moved to Israel…Ella was born there, and the two live in the big house her father built decades ago. It is on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, has a garden and its own bomb shelter.
Benje and Ella and their five children are Orthodox Jews. In time their second son, Samuel, and his wife Estee were also inspired to live in Israel. They’ve been very happy.
Recently, Estee presented their three young daughters with a brother—named him David. When Benjamin’s older brother David left us last November, it cheered me there was still a David Thompson on this planet.
Samuel was able to continue his work designing video games, and Estee soon will return to her calling of Nurse Practitioner. They found the perfect apartment in a community of likeminded young people, Beit Shemesh, about nineteen miles west of Jerusalem.
Well, this morning an Iranian missile pierced through the famous Israeli protective “dome, ” struck a makeshift synagogue in Beit Shemesh, killed nine people, injured a couple of dozen.
I asked Benje (thank heaven the cell phone still works) if Samuel and Estee lived close to where the missile struck. He said, “Mom, it’s like saying they live in Westwood and the missile hit Westwood.” Yes, it was close.
Prayers going up.
I just shook my head.
Oh. This morning in church singing in the choir gave me so much. Very comforting, a long hour in a choir loft with beautiful old melodies and very good people.
And granddaughter Kate wrote from New York that the scarf I knitted for her Taylor was “a work of art” and she wants to learn how to knit.
Now I’m going back to work (our novel is days from finishing), then will make supper, face the week. Worry about my children in Israel.
Life for the old lady goes on despite Trump and Khameini.
