The same beautiful boys, the same tearful parents. Tearful, yet proud. So tense, so unhappy and so fearful, and so trying to hide it all. Israel is such a difficult country to live in. It is so hard to accept this as the norm. Yet where else would we live? I know that at the end of the three years, my grandson, and all the other children, will come out of this experience a mature person, reliable, lovely, and equipped to start life.
Yet looking back, this was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and now I see my daughter having the same feelings as I had, and having to go through the same anxieties. There is nothing I can say to her to ease the pain. Only that it passes and pride takes over. That you learn to live with the fear. And it will be ok. You know that it will be more than ok…. But this rite of passage, this solely Israeli rite of passage is so so hard to deal with.
In the words of someone cleverer than me…. Tomorrow is another day!