A Letter To My Adopted Soldier, As Tisha B'av Wanes

amother

Tue, Aug 05 2014, 5:36 pm

To My Soldier:

You are mine.

You are given to me as my sons and daughters are; you were destined for me as my husband was.

You may be a father of many, or you may still carry your childhood alongside your warrior’s weapons.

You may be years older than I am, or younger than my oldest child.

There is no way for me to know. I am left to wonder who you are, how you look, if you would like my cooking.

I believe you know how to make young children laugh.

Marvelous and strange! That one day, I pressed a few characters on a small hand-held screen; a moment later, your name appeared and you were born to me.

You cannot know that your first name is my husband’s name also- his middle name. Your second name is that of my firstborn son, and your mother’s second name is that of my daughter, the girl who made a mother out of me, as your mother, now tied to me too, has made a different kind of mother of me.
How can she not have, given this Divinely developed synchronicity?

I do not pretend to hold any part of your fate in my hands; I know your fate is in Hands most capable and sure. It is up to you to commend yourself to the guidance of those Hands, just as it is now incumbent upon to me to beseech and plead that those Hands shield you from hurt and harm, and carry you gently home.

The tricks of time have it that where you are now, it is night. Maybe, in your imagination, you see the still-smoldering fires that burned the tears out of our ancestors’ eyes. I pray that it’s only in your imagination that you see fire and death and loss.

Where I am, the sun still lights my city but today, I feel only the fury that burns and do not feel the warmth it bestows. But while there is still this daylight, the Ninth of Av is infused with all its weight and kochos. And so, I ask something from the One Who created this day and all its energies. I ask the One Who, years ago, chose the Ninth of Av to be the day of my birth, to allow the fulfillment of a bracha to you, my soldier-son, my brother, my child:

May Hashem protect you and your family-in-arms; may He keep you safe and return you to your family whole. May Hashem bless you with health, happiness, peace, success in your endeavors, and may you always recognize Him as the Source of all you have, need, and want.

May our intertwined souls meet and recognize each other in the glow of the Bais Hamikdosh, where you and I and our families will know each other; where men will sing and mothers will hold their sons - and where you will make the young children laugh.

-Your 'Mother'