I have complicated feelings about an encounter today. Wistful, sad, hopeful.

I've talked about Matilda reconnecting with her friend Norah, and Norah's mother Hannah (who helped care for Jacqueline during hospice).

But Norah isn't the only friend Matilda lost during the COVID lockdown, she also had a breach in her friendship with Davi. There was no betrayal there but Covid bubbles and a Norah/Davi alliance pulled Davi away from Matilda and it was a painful loss.

Davi's family lived around the corner from us - physically the closest of her friends and there were many sleepovers at their warm and welcoming house. Raquel was the ultimate den mother (and a caterer/chef) and Drew was the warmest, breeziest, kindest Dad you could imagine over his family of four kids (Davi and her three brothers).

But it was not all perfect. Drew was bipolar and suffered from suicidal ideation and he did kill himself, about a year and a half ago. Matilda and I went to the memorial, and while Hannah was very loving and welcoming of Matilda both Norah and Davi snubbed her completely.

Which is one reason I'm surprised that Matilda and Norah have reconciled. But also, Davi and Matilda have started talking. Because while Matilda has been in therapy since JZ's diagnosis, Davi has never done therapy about her father's death. So she's been asking Matilda about her experience with therapy. So I'm hoping there's a reconciliation there as well.

That's not what's prompting my complicated feeling though.

That comes from walking into our local Whole Foods a couple nights ago and one of the clerks there saying with happy surprise in his voice, "Hey! You're Matilda's dad!" It was Lucas, Davi's middle brother.

And we chatted a bit. Then tonight I walked in again and he spotted me and this time he called me by name. I teased him about working all the time, especially on a Saturday night and asked if he was going to buy a car. He said, "No, but I have actually been looking at buying a watch. My dad's friend knows a lot about collecting watches and I've been thinking about getting this Seiko..." and he pulled it up on his phone to show me.

And I could feel - not in a needy way - his need to tap into a little bit of Dad energy talking to me. Not that we were ever close or knew each other well. But I was a trusted face he'd known for years. But also, from his comment I knew that he had a lot of men in his life, his father's friends and his mother's family, and the parents around him who were making themselves available to him.

I thought of Jacqueline's friends who had bonded with Matilda during hospice and how I'd worked to foster those bonds. In the same way, I expect that Raquel has worked to bring other adults into their family's sphere. Not to replace Drew but just give other adult reference points, somebody else to bounce off which is hard to do when you're a single parent.

Something I tried to do with my niece as my sister was dying. And also something Jacqueline did as a mother figure to her friend Marco (who she mentored), Mia (Matilda's close friend who is legally barred from seeing her mother) and cousin Nicole.

These kids just dragging around these grievous losses, this unbearable pain, and you just try to throw them a lifeline.

I enjoyed talking to Lucas. And I'll ask him about his watch collection every time.

Hopeful. Sad. Life's fucking hard.

That makes me think of the book The Council of Dads, where the author received a bad diagnosis and recruited a group of men to be there for his daughters after he was gone. (He ended up not dying from the whatever-it-was.)

That makes me think of the book The Council of Dads, where the author received a bad diagnosis and recruited a group of men to be there for his daughters after he was gone. (He ended up not dying from the whatever-it-was.)

Same feeling, yeah. And when I think about it I wasn't that much older when I lost my mother. 23. Obviously a very different time in your life than 17, but...still pretty young.

Also makes me think of that scene in Ordinary People where Timothy Hutton's character goes to see the girl he was friends with at the mental hospital. And she had on that facade that everything was okay, she was moving forward and...then she wasn't. Her suicide triggers him.

It was so hard on Mia to lose Jacqueline, who had really filled a loving maternal role for her. Not something I can do for her. Jacqueline had a long talk with Mia after JZ got out of the hospital. Trying to fill her up with love and self-acceptance.

These kids just dragging around these grievous losses, this unbearable pain, and you just try to throw them a lifeline.

This echos very well the experience here, too. A blanket of grief and horror was thrown over the region. I try to throw lifelines wherever and whenever I can. I wish I could do more than that. While I still would like very much to wake up from this nightmare, the thing that is very uncomfortable is to be OK with all of the things I need not to think about (the dead, the hostages, the war, the government) to return to some form of a life - in any form it may take. Less than 100% success rate, but at times I don't feel guilty about continuing to live a life when so many around me can't. There's just no other way forward.

Also, {{{Pix+Buffistas}}}

It is a day for celebration. Happy birthday to Jessica! I hope that you are being spoiled and treated this day and all the days to come.

Hopeful. Sad. Life's fucking hard.

True. The world is a better place for all the kind and compassionate friends, neighbors, and mentors I see here. You make a difference. It gives me hope when I see the good people, although I will never understand why there are so many genuinely evil people out there. It is an effort to balance the scales.

Timelies!

Karl, my condolences for your loss.

Amy, lisah, Pix, sheryl, EpicTangent, smonster, Jessica, David, Oh-goodness-I'm-sure-I've-missed-somebody's-name-and-only-remember-after-logging-off - you're all constantly in my thoughts, and very often in my prayers, for good-stuff-all-around for you.

Also all y'all. Yes, you too. No matter how many or how few posts you write. I know how I keep feeling that you care about me, even after months on months of me not writing a single word, so I know I can honestly write it when it's the other way around, as well.

Just in general good-stuff-all-around. I don't know how to be specific, I don't know exactly what to wish for. For nobody, anymore. So I throw this big all-enveloping net, and just include all-good-things in it, and let each and every one, or the universe, or whoever is in charge of these things, to fill in the blanks, for what is good for wach and every one.

I'm still as OK as possible, under the circumstances. Everyday life has a way to take charge, no matter what. And that's a blessing, in a way. Pi+Girl spiking a fever yesterday and staying home from school today, PiBoy trying to catch her fever so that he'd get to miss school as well - everyday stuff.

Hope your Sunday is pleasant and resful, and timelies, y'all.

Cereal in order to wave to Laura.

Happy birthday, Jessica!

No, wait, I've got extra milk on my cereal, as in I've got something else to write:

During the last couple of days, every person I got to talk to, said something like "but things are much harder for others" whenever I've asked them how they're doing.

On Thursday I've been to a big Supermarket, and I wrote in a local Whatsapp group that I'm shopping, and is there anybody who needs anything (especially relevant before shabbat). I was very happy to get several responses, almost all of them from women whose husbands are enlisted now.

So I had to talk to each of them when I got home, to make sure I give each one of them her groceries, and every single one of them kept saying "but I'm relatively OK, others have it so much worse".

And I'm talking about, for example, a woman whose husband is so much right at the front, that he had to hand out his phone, so there's no regular communication with him. And she has to both works at her job and maintain some sort of routine for her kids, and hold their world together, and she says "But I'm relatively OK. I haven't lost any family member, I can still do my job and be balanced financially, I have resources to help my children cope. Some have it so much worse".

And one after the other, those were the dexcriptions I got ("my father is here until Sunday, and then my mom will be here for a week, so only in a week and a half I'll need help, I'm OK, others have it so much harder than this" and "I could prolong my maternity leave, so I can still be now with my children, from the minute they finish school, and try to answer to their needs as much as possible. Others have it so much worse with juggling work and child-care" and so on and so forth).

And I kept saying "Not having something horrible happen to you doesn't mean you don't have to deal with your own stuff. It's OK if things are difficult for you, even if others have it worse. Their worse blows don't lessen your own's".

And I keep trying to say that to myself, too.

(Oh, and there was a funny side to it, too - one of them sheepishly asked if I can check whether the supermarket has a broom-stick, since hers broke, and a - oh, wait, I need a dictionary for that one - a grater (?), since, again, hers just got broken. I had to go look around the whole place to see if they carry such stuff - and they did! She was so embarrassed for asking strange things, and I was so pleased that I could not only find them for her, but also to manage to fit the long broom-stick in the car full of shopping bags.)

[Edit: Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to ramble at such length! I never knew how to express myself shortly, but I seem to be getting worse than ever!]

It's a small and very memememe thing, but popping in in time to be here with a real live Nilly is always a delight!

Nilly and Shir, I've been thinking of both of you and your families constantly this month. Sending love your way in hope that it helps to shore up the giant reserves that you're putting out into your communities.

I'm also on the "not as bad as others" club.

I'm also now wondering what it's like to live in a quiet, boring place where nothing happens and no one has strong opinions on who should live there.

(I still love Jerusalem very much. But war is something else).