100 Days

If it’s any consolation to those far away who are anxious to know if we’re okay…

We are okay-ish.

Okay, in body, not in spirit.

Okay in relative safety near our steel room in our too quiet city.

So quiet.

Okay, enough to shower and eat and use the bathroom—quickly, though, because we were already caught with our pants down, and we are not handling surprises well.

But okay enough to function as one does when one knows there are bodies in the fields, bodies in the streets, captives far from home, and captives still cowering at home.

Okay, if okay means we are at war, and because we are ok at war, we are okay enough to be bracing for another level of hell as we find out what we already know but hide behind okay.

We are not really okay, but there is no other way to tell you that we are still alive without throwing the fact that too many aren’t in your face.

So we cushion it, all of us, with our reassuring words and calm acceptance of reality.

This is war.

And we are okay.

Dear world,

We have been cut open and left to bleed.

Turn your thoughts and prayers into blood-soaked rags and wring them out for all to see.

We will mourn when we can breathe, and we will only breathe when we bury our beloved and make this land sacred.

Then you can call it the Holyland.

Day 3 and the color of the sky is war.

Blue.

A bit cloudy because, October.

Sun still rising lazily—she is also reluctant to welcome another day.

And quiet save for the rumblings overhead that tell of incoming showers and outgoing rage.

Did you know war looks like a Monday?

There are sun-kissed bodies in the field greeting another day they will never see.

Day 4 and the color of war is rain.

Rain rain

go away

come back

another day

we need the world

to see the blood

rain rain

go away.

Day 5, and there is virtual school because we cannot abandon our children.

Open your cameras, she pleads. I need to see your faces.

And one by one, they appear.

Her voice shakes.

Seeing you gives me hope. Seeing you give me comfort.

And she talks about the students she lost, graduates of the school. She tells them about their beautiful hearts. And she asks how they are. She asks pointed, guided questions, and she gets them to share. And there is a sense of togetherness.

She shares her screen and plays President Biden’s speech from last night. They watch him address the world together, so these children know that America stands by them and they feel a little less alone and a little bit stronger.

She is his favorite teacher. She teaches them Arabic.

Day 6 and the color of war is hope.

A different kind of hope. The hope of 1,300 and counting.

This is a hope that rises from ashes.

A blazing hope impossible to ignore.

If you see it coming, you will not be able to withstand its fury.

Day 7 and we are talking moral equivalency. It is heart-wrenching but necessary because we will always hold ourselves to task.

We are at war for our lives.

Our future is dependent on how we march into this battle.

I am navigating obstacles with a moral compass and I am terrified to lose my way.

Day 8 and the color of war is heavy.

Heavy with loss, heavy with grief, heavy with pain, heavy with rage, heavy with fear, heavy with responsibility, heavy with hope.

Heavy.

Day 9

The sky is crying.

Heaving over the land

Weeping clouds of grief

We are caught in this storm

And I am running out of words

But my tears are gathering

Falling harder and harder

And they will not stop

The sky is crying

Day 10

We listen to the Sounds of War.

Rising sirens

Whooshing missiles

Shooting mortars

Flying jets

Exploding skies

Barking dogs

Sighing elders

Falling bodies

And loudest of all

Crying corpses.

Day 11

The laundry piles up because time moved forward despite desperately clawing it back to when we used to feel safe.

Clothes from our forgotten vacation; bathing suits, extra socks, just-in-case outfits for the unexpected…

We pack just-in-case bags.

Just in case we have to run.

Day 12

We talk values.

Compassion. Justice. Truth. Hatred.

He asks me why.

I wipe his tears.

Please tell me why.

Day 13

We are changed, and boy does that anger you because you thought we would roll over and die, too tired to fight your baseless hate. But we are not the same Jews we were generations ago. We are not the same Jews we were two weeks ago.

We are changed.

You remain the same.

How pitiful.

Day 14

We are in so many places, alone together, waiting.

In bomb shelters, in bases, in freshly dug graves, in pieces, in ashes, in tender forever-embrace.

Waiting.

To bring them back home.

Day 15

We live Saturday to Saturday, round and round we go

Always landing on the morning, today, last week, two weeks ago

When grief became our culture, pain our nation song,

Resilience rising rapidly, to hope, to dream, to be strong.

Day 16

We share nightmares.

He saw them kick in the door, I was ripped from his embrace; the kids refuse to dream.

The threads that hold us to our grandparents weave tighter evermore.

Day 17

I am alone with my thoughts for the first time since hell broke through our borders.

I process them one by one, and I let myself feel.

Fear, Pain, Anger, Grief…

So much grief.

But what hits me hardest is Betrayal.

The world made me believe that I could embrace my identity, that being true to myself was my right and would be valued.

But they never meant that for the Jews.

Silly me.

Day 18

I am watching people lose their minds.

Good people, intelligent people

But it’s not my job to describe the shoes I’m wearing so you don’t have to inconvenience yourself and walk that mile.

Day 19

Children of war are afraid.

Some fear death from the sky and rubble grave at the hands of an enemy they don’t understand.

That is always a tragedy.

Some fear torture, rape, mutilation, and a fiery tomb at the hands of an enemy laughing in their face.

There are degrees of tragedy.

We mourn them all.

Day 20

224

Bring them home.

Day 21

We are encouraged to go back to our regularly scheduled lives.

Instructed.

And we do because we understand the assignment, recognize the importance of keeping ourselves strong, and are determined not to let terrorism win.

But also, we don’t because we are changed, and so our regularly scheduled lives have 229 missing pieces, 1,400 graves and counting, thousands of wounded bodies, and an entire nation of tormented souls.

Day 22

There is fog overhead.

War fog.

It is hard to see through the pain and suffering. It is impossible to see past the loss.

But blurred vision does not blind us to who we are or to who waves flags of hate and chants for our demise.

Don’t be mistaken.

We are not lost in this fog.

We can still see right from wrong.

Day 23

Someone across the ocean said, “We need to wipe them out.”

And my son, terrified of rockets, afraid of being butchered in his bed, raised his head in anger.

“How does that make us better than them?”

He is a child of war, born and raised on this contested soil.

Do not tell him how to see what is in front of his eyes.

Day 24

When you cut them open, did you see?

Did poison seep out of their veins?

Did you wince at the sight of demons rising from their burnt-out cores?

You must have seen the Jew colonizer hiding behind infant eyes.

Surely there was an oppressor’s whip clasped in wizened hands.

You had to have been faced with monsters when you raged in your justified pogrom.

But tell me please, I need to know.

Did you finally see the blood you spilled as blood that could have been your own?

Because I am covered in a shroud stained with yours and mine, and all I can see is a red so deep, it has blackened the sky.

Day 25

Dear mothers in Gaza,

I think of you often.

I imagine you holding your newborn, your heart surging with love. I imagine the words you whisper as you rock your children to sleep. I imagine you promising them the world.

For 24 days, you were on my mind.

I thought of your pain and sorrow. I thought of the promises you cannot keep. I thought of your fear. I thought of your hate.

I wondered if you think of me and imagine me thinking of you. I wondered if you think I hate you. I wondered what you’d think if you knew I couldn’t.

For 24 days, I thought of you.

On Day 25, I know I don’t have to.

I want to.

Day 26 and the color of war is a number.

Just one number.

Because we can count the bodies and the graves and the missing and the names and the hostages and the days and the victims and the ways, and still, it will be one.

One and one and one and one.

Each a world, each a song, each a heart, each a sun.

Now we add the fallen, burning through this endless fight.

And we know we will count forever.

One by one.

Night by night.

Day 27

Are you uncomfortable yet?

Do my words make you cringe?

Please, get uncomfortable.

Because I won’t stop until every captive is returned, every murdered soul is buried, and every piece of human flesh identified and laid to rest.

I won’t stop until we no longer need to debate the difference between good and evil.

I won’t stop until it is normal for every human to acknowledge the right of other humans to exist.

I won’t stop until we can walk freely and safely in our homes.

I won’t stop until there is peace in this land and we are bursting with love, respect, and unity.

From the river to the sea.

Day 26

We hug differently now.

We say hello and goodbye and see you later and it has a ring to it that thunders through the spaces we leave for words unspoken.

And there are so many words we cannot bear to speak.

So we smile and talk about work and family and hold intense debates in our personal war rooms, and we tuck ourselves into our beds and pretend to sleep while we try to ignore the thundering words unspoken marching through our tired minds.

We still dream through sleepless nights.

Even in our dreams, we are speechless.

Day 29

We are not triggered by you when you call us names, point your fingers, and dismiss our pain.

Triggers are for trauma; your hatred is just a sting.

We save our triggers to fuel this fight and bring them all back home.

There is no shortage of fuel here.

Our trigger bank is full of metal doors, concrete walls, a baby’s desperate cry, empty chairs, empty beds, empty arms, hollow eyes..

And every week, as an extra boost, we get a day of rest.

We are triggered by Saturdays.

Rest won’t come easily.

Day 30

Inhale

We send messages.

One check…

Two checks…

Blue checks…

Exhale.

Deep breath in and hold…

We scan names.

Too many names.

Familiar names.

Exhale relief and dread.

We are every unsent message, every listed name and all we can do is breathe…

Just breathe.

Day 31

You can do a lot in 31 days.

You can fall in love, find a job, and learn a new skill. You can go to school and pass your tests. You can prep meals, pack lunches, and give kisses goodbye. You can wash your face, brush your teeth, and cuddle on the couch. You can go out for drinks, host a party, enjoy a morning jog, and even have time to be bored.

You can take your first steps.

You can speak your first word.

You can do a lot in 31 days when you are safe at home.

But if you aren’t, if you are not home, and you are not safe, you cannot do anything at all.

And so we have spent 31 days doing one thing only: working to bring you back home.

We have screamed for it and fought for it, and some of us have died for it, but none of us will stop until you are all home.

Day 32

Don’t tell me to stay safe.

Don’t tell me not to read the news, not to check each siren, not to think about it, not to worry.

Don’t tell me not to be afraid.

It is my prerogative to be afraid. It is my country under attack. It is my life I am protecting.

My people were murdered, my people were taken, we are ONE.

I cannot stay safe.

I cannot make sure a missile doesn’t rain down on my head. I cannot trust the Iron Dome to keep me alive. I cannot rely on miracles.

I will not stop my life and hide, but I will be grief-stricken and afraid.

I do not stand with Israel.

I crouch with her in shelters, in stairways, on the side of the road, in trenches, in ditches, in enemy tunnels, in war.

Don’t tell me to stay safe.

Tell me to stay strong, stay low, and push forward.

Be afraid, be brave, and protect this land.

And don’t ever give in.

Day 33

I have been at this table for years.

I arrived with no expectations, just an open mind.

I sat, and I waited.

I waited and waited, and you never showed up.

So, I got up to leave.

I took the hope I had prepared, and I started to walk away.

But then I saw yours, the hope you left to rot, and I took a moment to wrap it in bits of leftover dreams so that when we finally sit down, there will be hope to salvage.

I won’t leave our table forever.

I’ve just gone to bring it to you.

Day 34

We sing sad songs.

Heartwrenching, gut-twisting songs.

Songs of loss and emptiness, songs of longing and despair, songs of peace, songs of hope, songs of dreams we share.

But no matter the song, there are three words driving every refrain.

Bring them home.

Bring them home.

Bring them home.

Day 35

I wonder how it helps, writing slogans, waving virtual flags…

I wonder if it changes anything or if it eases your discomfort as it quiets a voice inside your head.

I have waved flags, shouted slogans, stood up for what is right.

I told you I want to share a life with you—you just said you want me dead.

So what does it do? How does it help?

I really want to know.

Day 36

There is a quiet acceptance to being hated.

You try to fight it at first.

It doesn’t fit who you are, and your instinct is to explain why.

But then in digs in deeper, and you realize it won’t get off your back.

So you wear a target for all to see, and over time, you stop feeling it. Soon enough, you even start to like it. It has personality, it has a bit of an edge, and you realize that your very existence has become so wonderfully seen that it is threatening.

There’s a quiet acceptance to being hated until one day, it is louder and prouder than you’d ever believe.

Day 37

A list of things I care about:

• Health
• Safety
• Freedom
• Autonomy

A list of who these things belong to:

• Everyone

A list of who stands in the way:

• Terrorists
• Fundamentalists

A list of what I can post on social media that will make fundamentalist terrorists move aside so that everyone and their families can enjoy health, safety, freedom, and autonomy:

• Nothing.

Not one thing.

Day 39

There is a rainbow overhead, a double, full rainbow bursting through the clouds, bright, colorful, and full of hope.

But my back is turned, hunched in grief, so all I can see is its reflection dancing in a puddle of tears.

How dare you, I whisper, how dare you shine today.

Day 40

You stood, nearly 300,000 strong, and you hugged me.

I am a little less afraid. I am a little less alone.

Thank you.

Day 41

When you march to bring them home, you are not protesting or resisting.

You are pacing.

Because you are a worried parent, you are a devastated friend, you are an anxious child, you are still holding your breath, and no amount of counting steps can add up to the 41 days spent in captivity.

Bring them home.

Day 42

A letter to America, in your safe spaces and sheltered privilege:

May you never face terror, you never understand, may you always be oblivious, may it never weaken you.

With love,

The world.

Day 43

The thing about missing people, captive people, is that they take up so much space and so you have to step around where they should have been as you go about living your life.

And every sidestep pause in your day is another reminder that we are not ok.

We cannot begin to be ok until we bring them home.

Bring them home.

Now.

Day 44

The message always begins with “released for publication.”

And every time, my heart stops beating.

It’s rarely just one name. Most days, it’s a list.

I click on the notification and begin to read, bracing myself for the most chilling emotional roller coaster you could not possibly imagine.

But try to imagine so that you get what we mean when we say we are not ok.

Names, ranks, ages, hometowns…

I am awash with Grief.

Then Relief—I don’t know them.

Grief—but someone does.

Relief—I am still a degree away.

Grief—there are no degrees here.

Your heart can feel two things at once.

Relief and Grief are the cruelest pair residing in mine.

Day 45

Let me describe my home.

It is warm. It is now spacious, but there is plenty of room. it holds pockets of the past sacred, each nook and cranny filled with remnants of history. It is brimming with love.

My home is welcoming. It is accepting and understanding. It embraces difference and isn’t afraid to hold hard conversations.

My home is a sanctuary. Everyone is wanted, and nobody is left behind.

My home is a beacon of light. It shines through dark tunnels and calls out into the abyss with a ringing you cannot ignore as it searches for those who were taken from inside its walls by those who cannot stand the sight of my home because it dares to exist.

My broken-down home is aching and all we can do is stand together as we scream with all our might: bring them home.

Day 46

How long does it take to become used to war? How many bodies need to be counted? How many mothers need to grieve? How long can you survive war?

You don’t make it out unscathed. Dead or alive, you have been marked.

But these scars have seen all this before. This fight is not new.

Maybe we are already used to war.

Maybe this unease, this rattling of the system, is not war starting but war ending because maybe what we feel is tired of trying to get used to something we can never accept.

Maybe our never again is now has more to do with what we will tolerate and how we will draw a line in the sand and say no, we will not accept another spat going nowhere.

We will only accept peace.

And we will have it.

Whatever it takes.

Day 47

Impossible.

These are impossible days, impossible nights, impossible dreams.

These are impossible times, impossible reasons, impossible grief.

These are impossible fears, impossible loss, impossible pains.

These are impossible choices.

Impossible.

Day 48

We don’t have to be grateful.

We don’t have to be grateful for a deal. We don’t have to be grateful for reprieve. We don’t have to be grateful for our right to exist.

But still, we are grateful.

Because we are a nation of survivors and gratitude has always helped us survive.

Day 49

Shhhh.

We have nothing to say.

We are waiting and we do not have enough breath to waste on words that do not bring them all home.

So be quiet.

Be still.

And keep waiting.

Day 50

There is no part of this that is easy.

This is not a goodwill gesture, an exchange of pleasantries from one side to the other.

This is a torture game we are forced to play.

Don’t expect us to roll over and take it.

Day 51

A glimpse, just a little blurry glimpse, to confirm they are safe, and then we turn to those still stuck in this nightmare.

Our hearts may be fragmented but our sights are focused.

Bring them home.

All of them.

Now.

Day 52

We aren’t good at this.

We bleed too easily, hurt too quickly.

We feel too much.

We feel it all.

Every mother’s aching womb, every father’s empty arms, every brother’s lonely scream.

And it breaks us.

You knew how to break us.

But you didn’t know that we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Because we would rather hurt all over than be good at war.

We will always choose the path towards peace.

And that will be your downfall.

Day 53

This isn’t normal.

Sitting on the couch, watching with bated breath as elderly women, children, and mothers take cautious steps out of captivity.

Relief washes over us for one second, long enough to catch another breath we will hold for as long as it takes to bring them all back home

But take a second to see this, really see this.

We’re not watching a favorite reality show.

This isn’t ok.

People don’t just take people and use them to terrorize and entire nation.

Do you see what is happening?

Don’t just sit there.

Get up and see how insane this is.

Get up and say no.

This is not a world where this is ok.

We choose life and love and freedom.

That’s what we’re fighting for.

Can’t you see what we’re fighting for?

Day 54

Enough.

I’ve had enough.

Enough saying things cautiously, nicely, maybe even apologetically, as if I have to be sorry for the world letting this happen, as if I have to tread between sensitivities to ensure no one gets upset at my lived experiences, as if I have to make excuses for your failure to see what is right in front of your turned-away eyes.

I’ve had enough.

We have all had enough.

Hamas is evil.

Full stop.

Bring them home.

All of them.

Now.

And then we rid the world of evil even if the world demands us to stop.

Day 55

I want to be shocked, to be sitting in disbelief as I watch cruelty unfold, lies exposed, and chaos run rampant, but when shots were fired at a bus stop and bodies fell again, my muscle memory sprang into action and I joined the countrywide emergency response team.

We are so goot at it.

The area is secured immediately as all of us at home begin to reach out.

We know exactly where everyone is within minutes.

Names, funerals, surgeries, interviews…we process fast and by nightfall, we are back in front of our screens waiting to see them come home.

Tell me again how privileged you think we are.

Go on, tell me again.

Day 56

When you don’t have time to grieve, the stages of grief run after you, relentlessly begging for attention.

But you push them aside.

And so they pile up behind you and creep up around you and soon, you are surrounded by the stages of grief you haven’t allowed in and they are absorbing the new waves of loss and layering more grief around you and you just don’t have time to unravel it all and so you keep weaving a cocoon around the person you were almost two months ago and hope that somehow you will emerge with wings to fly you far away from this unimaginable reality.

We are at war.

We are still at war.

And we have no time to grieve.

Day 57

The price of war is beyond measure.

I wish we could say it is worth it, but how can we say that when there are so many lives irrevocably changed along the way?

On every side.

How can we throw all our support behind it when we have always looked for a better way?

A peaceful way.

We can’t. But we must.

We aren’t callous to loss. We aren’t brushing away pain.

We are living an agonizing imbalance. We are making difficult decisions.

The price of was is beyond measure.

Stop trying to measure it.

Day 58

There was a before and before, we had other things on our minds.

A lot of things like family, jobs, friends…

And we pushed off some things because summer was long and the holidays were hectic.

Where do those things go? How do they fit?

They bubble just under the surface as we walk cautiously over the layer of now we shoved on top.

But nothing stays under a rug forever.

There was a before and there will be an after and it be an aftermath.

Day 59

Everyone I know is feeling a little sick. Under the weather.

This one had a fever for a couple of days. That one is fighting fatigue. Another lost their voice.

Because you can only be ok for so long.

And the body keeps the score.

Day 60

We are looking for small miracles.

One person waking up from a coma. An impact absorbed by a tree, missing people by a few centimeters. The return to kindergarten after seven weeks in captivity. A dog brought out alive.

Small miracles.

We look for them hoping they will hep us believe.

Beucase we need to believe in miracles if we are to believe this will bring them home.

Day 61

When I was born, I did not know that my birth came with words like context floating through the umbilical cord connecting me to my ancestors so that I could raise another generation of Jews who have to tell people that calling for our end does not need to turn into actually ending us in order to be considered hateful.

When I was born, I did not know I’d have to someday wonder why my birth was less valid than everyone else’s and why I am held accountable for every person who shares my heritage while the world gets to be judged by their actions alone.

When I was born, I did not know I would be spending Day 61 of a war I did not start feeling like I had to somehow justify the fact that I was born.

Day 62

We tell a story, year after year, generation after generation, of a flame that refused to die.

And we gather strength from the spark that was lit in the shadow of victory; lin on the ruins of a kingdom ravished by a war waged in defense of identity.

One little flame, fighting for air, look how far you’ve come.

You have been rekindled again and again, you have brought hope, you have brought resilience.

But we need more.

We need you to burn brighter than ever today. We need you to stop waiting to be seen.

We need you to shine through the dark and lead them back home.

Day 63

I don’t want to write anymore.

I don’t want to count the days and watch the numbers grow.

I don’t want to see the lists and read the names.

I don’t want to hold my breath.

I’m tired.

I want this war to end.

But I want them home more.

So I will write and count and watch and read and keep holding my breath through sleepless nights because this was is not about me.

Day 64 and the color of war is symbolism.

A Menorah to remember wars we won.

A Magen David to show our pride.

A flag waving high so we know why we’re fighting.

A dog tag to demand no one be left behind.

An empty chair because we are waiting.

A yellow ribbon to bring them home.

Day 65

Did you know battles can rage under a breathtaking sky streaked with pinks and yellows that make you think of unicorns?

Did you know that soldiers are just boys and reserves are just dads? Did you they are also mothers and girls?

Did you know that refugees are cold and hungry, survivors are traumatized, and casualties are heartbreaking losses no matter where they were born?

Did you know that when I shiver at night, I am shivering for the hostages huddling in tunnels and also for the families huddling above them in tents, and I cannot get warm because I want everyone to sleep safely at home?

Did you know that I am not the only Israeli who lies awake at night and thinks about all the things I want you to know, even though you don’t want to believe me?

Day 66

We are sitting on the couch watching a comedy special.

The candles are burning. Five for the fifth day on this 66th day.

And we are laughing.

The house shakes. Windows rattle from something somewhere nearby.

We keep laughing.

How else can we get the tears to flow?

We are all out of cries.

Day 67

I don’t want my words to move anymore.

When they move, it feels like they are dancing, and I have not been able to dance since they were shot down before the song was over.

I want my words to stay still the way they made themselves quiet and small so they would not be detected under bushes, in thorns, in shelters, in bed, in fear.

I want my words to pause and wait the way they waited for someone to save them as they counted the minutes, the hours, the days, and now months.

I don’t want my words to move anymore.

I want them to move you and hope that somehow, they will also move the world.

Day 68

Our lives have been compressed.

Short-form versions of long-form pain, shared from one platform to the next.

Meme me one day more, tell the world why I’m wrong and what you are so sure I’ve done to deserve another day of impossible grief on top of endless waiting.

You post and comment and share and sip your latte and never have to actually live this context-heavy nuance of running for your lives.

We are standing shoulder to shoulder under a story sky full of missiles.

Your sticks and stones have become echoes we can ignore.

Day 69

What about the children?

The ones displaced, cold, afraid.

The ones gunned down.

The ones held captive.

And yes, the ones under the rubble.

What about them?

Where do they go from here?

Do they stay in their graves and fade away?

Do they grow up in fear?

Do the grow up angry?

Do they ever get to be safe?

What about the children?

Day 70

Another Friday.

Missiles here, missiles there, missiles falling everywhere.

We shoot them down.

Up north, down south, now watch them fly from our living room window.

We run for safety, stand in stairwells, sleep in shelters, wait ten minutes for falling debris, and off we go again to another day, another week, another month.

We have made this land a protected space, and we feel secure as though it’s ok for it to be raining rockets on our heads.

It’s not okay.

Nothing is okay.

But we’ve been telling you that for 70 days.

All we get in return is a running commentary on what you are sure had been, and what you think will be.

Day 71

A shattered heart can still be broken, the splintering pieces piercing through even the most toughened skin like they hadn’t already sliced us to shreds.

We layer heartbreak on top of heartbreak in this suspended state of existence.

Somewhere between living and surviving, we eat, we sleep, we break, and we wait for something that is beginning to feel hopeless.

Give us back our hope and we will use it to do what we always do; make this hopeless dread blossom into something worth fighting for.

Day 72

She wants to know what will happen after when this is over, in which ways she will be marked by this, what university she will be able to go to, as an Israeli, as a Jew, and if it will be safe for her to travel, see the world like she’s always wanted to.

And I want her to stop rowing up and thinking about the future while we are paused, but time will not agree to my demands.

And so we talk about it.

And it feels like we are spitting in the wind.

Day 73

If you had asked me, when I was 18 and just learning that I could be a person who gets asked these kinds of things, what I thought about a war or a politician or a concept, or even myself, I would have blurted out the first thing that came to mind with no thought of the actual question or ow my answer might impact anything outside my vision.

And my vision was pretty blurred, as it were.

But still, I would have said it with conviction because when you are 18 and right up until the day your frontal love kicks you to the curb, you have the confidence of a rabid coyote in a henhouse.

So the fact that most 18-24-year-olds seem to think I’d be better off dead is scary but also, maybe, just a little bit sad.

Because you regret a lot of things once you get your bearing, but no one should have to regret their part in terror.

That’s a bit too much to carry.

It should be voting for the wrong party, going to the wrong party, or just parties in general.

Day 74

There are so many mothers.

Mothers burying their children.

Children burying their mothers.

Mothers waiting for their children.

Children waiting for their mothers.

Mothers crying, mothers praying, mothers trying hard to breathe as they hold themselves together.

And I think of the one who first made me a mother eighteen years ago tomorrow, and all the what ifs and if thens that would have should have didn’t make me mother-in-waiting today, and I catch myself feeling grateful for the unmarked grave that kept him from ever being called up to serve.

That’s the kind of mother I am today.

It is just another flavor of mixed emotions we have learned to wear like a bejeweled sackcloth in this war-torn reality that makes no sense.

Day 75

I can’t stop shivering.

It starts deep in my bones and pulses out to my veins, every muscle in my body shakes as my teeth clatter and my fingers go numb.

It is only a touch under warm, yet I have frozen over.

I huddle beneath sweaters and blankets and sip hot tea as I tell myself this is just some winter blues. Nothing a bit of sunshine can’t cure.

I am a liar.

And so gullible, I believe myself.

At night, when I don’t have to pretend to be cold, I let my body tremble freely.

This is crying without tears.

And it won’t stop because it isn’t just the deep pain that makes me quiver.

It is more.

I am scared.

Day 76

A barrage.

Millions of people run for cover, caught during school pick-ups, lunch breaks, meetings…life.

We interrupt your day to remind you that you are wanted. Dead or afraid.

Mid-sentence, mid-shower, mid-coffee, mid-

Run—no, walk carefully; there is time.

Time enough to get to safely, even if safety is just a stairwell, inner wall, highway shoulder, hands over heads…

Listen for it: the Iron Dome whistling through the sky.

Aren’t you grateful?

You have protection.

But wait—don’t move. Ten minutes more so all the pieces can rain down in explosive glitter as though in celebration of our immense privilege.

Look how lucky we are. We have figured out a way not to die.

And we dance back to our regular lives.

Another day in paradise.

Day 77

We keep things in boxes, each tied with another piece of our broken hearts, and it is beginning to look like Christmas morning.

Unwrap us with glee, and see what you got.

Here are the hostages, worlds packed into one piercing word.

There is peace, stuck in limbo with the future.

Over to one side is gripping fear and on the other, despair.

Do you see those sympathy cards, tucked in envelopes the color of army green loss? New ones land every day, thrown on top of the growing pile with every released for publication name.

Don’t forget the rave, wrapped in highway hell black. And the fields of green dotted red, ’tis the season vibes in the Holyland.

Ribbons of blood, bows of fading hope, and the smell of burning in the air.

Welcome to our holiday special, and a happy new year.

Day 78

I feel numb today.

The rain seeped into my bones and froze my heart.

A reprieve.

I need to feel nothing sometimes.

But you can’t turn off a war, press rewind and repeat.

When I tune back in, the recap will bring me up to speed.

And the names, the numbers, the pain will flood this tired soul.

There will be no rest for the weary, not until they all come home.

Day 79

There are pockets throughout the day where I store the war.

Coffee and a quick news check.

Stretch my arms, glance at red alert notifications.

Lunch and an update on anti-Jewish America.

Snack and hashtag bring them home.

Power down to collapse on the couch and here are all the bits I stored in these too-shallow fabric squares masquerading as functioning.

When the sky goes black, I melt down into depletion and scroll and scroll and scroll, filling the silence of the dark with whatever this day brought.

I will lie awake throughout the night with the war inside my head.

Come morning, my pockets will be ready to be fed.

Day 80

I don’t know what I am going to write when I open this page and rest my fingers on the keys.

I don’t know if I will describe my day, spill my heart, or dump my constantly churning thoughts.

I don’t know how I am feeling at any moment; feelings don’t stick around too long when
you are in the eye of the storm.

I don’t know the exact words I will use, how they will flow, or if they will find a mark somewhere in the relentless clouds of opinions that matter and those that don’t.

I don’t know if these words matter.

But I know that I keep writing whatever comes because I know that one day, I will want to know how I was when the things that happen happened.

I will want to know that it mattered to me. I will want to know that every second of every day that passed where there were people held captive and people dying and injured and never coming home were seared in my heart and always on my mind.

Because no matter what I write or how I feel, they are always, ALWAYS, the foremost thought in my mind.

Day 81

We are growing strawberries on our balcony.

They ripen slowly, one or two every few days, and so we cut them into four and enjoy a sliver of our bounty.

No two taste the same, and they are gradually getting sweeter.

Our porch is so small, just a little corner looking out across the land, with nothing obstructing our view of the sea but distance.

Sound travels far so our city garden has heard this war go on.

Still, flowers blossom and strawberries bloat and the passionfruit grabs the metal gate as it climbs across the wall under brilliant blue skies and smokey black nights and flickering lights that don’t belong here.

What does it feel like, growing in war?

I taste another strawberry, still sugary sweet, and I wonder when my little balcony garden will give in to rot.

Day 82

I have been counting days, each one another line on my war calendar where I mark my memories. One day at a time, hour by hour, step by step, the way you write about a journey, the way you look ahead to a destination.

But Day 82 is also 82 days.

82 days in captivity.

1,968 hours held hostage by terrorists.

Each day packaged in 24 hours on top of the day before in a perilous pile of pain and uncertainty.

My counting towards hope and a future means nothing if they remain buried beneath the weight of waiting for us to bring them back home.

And when they are back, when they are all back, their counted days will not be a diary of reflection. Their days will be a stain on our hearts, a burden we made them bear, a tragedy no amount of time can erase.

So count with me as I count for them.

82 days.

Let the future wait.

83 days

The missing are everywhere.

In our hearts, in our minds, and in the little things we do.

They are in a walk in the park,
a bite to eat, a music break in solidarity, always heavy in the air, their absence consuming space and time like an endless black hole.

And everywhere they have not yet been,
we make more space for them to be.

I find them now in a refill, four-week dosage, three months at a time, the last one filled a day before the world broke.

I will stand in line and wait for my privileged standard healthcare with wet cheeks and heavy eyes because they are in the pharmacy with me, screaming for help in helpless whispers underground, and I cannot ignore them any more than I can resist the urge to breathe.

Bring them home.

84 days

Friday night again.

12 times ’round the weekly grind
12 times ’round the weekly dread.

Food prepped, table set, the rituals begin.

Welcome to the weekend where we stare at empty chairs and hold each other closer.

Stronger together, together in fear.

We won’t sleep easy, stuck in our weekly dance the way we danced the night before.

We can’t stop
won’t stop
don’t stop

Not until the music ends

And it’s playing louder now,
beating harder now,
running out of time now,
bring them home now!

Now, our anthem, now our only hope.

84 days.

85 days

We go out for air because we are still responsible for our bodies, and oxygen is necessary even though it reminds us how little they have deep in captivity.

The trees sway gently in the breeze.

I wonder what it is about the security of their trunks and the ruffling of their leaves that calms my heart and quiets my mind.

Be still, changing world; stop your mad spinning.

Don’t you know how badly you bleed? Don’t you feel the cracks in your core?

They have given up the trees for tombs where they store those they stole, and here you are, continuing to stand tall under the sun as though you know something we don’t.

Maybe you do, but there is no time to waste on wandering forest thoughts.

It has been 85 days; we have to bring them home.

86 days

Get ready with me for a New Year.

I’ll stand in front of you and put on a face.

Storytime and mascara, distraction distribution, I’ll spoon-feed you every day.

Vroom, vroom, open wide.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a hard truth you have to swallow while I refuse to go away.

86 days held hostage, and you’re excited for ‘24.

Get ready with me for the only thing that matters.

Bring them home.

End this war.

87 days

Our tired is tired.

You can dress it up as fatigue and swap reserves to make it seem like we are reserving energy, but the truth is we are too exhausted to be anything but angry.

And our angry is angrier.

Another day is passing, and they are still held hostage while time is ticking, and the world is pinning, and battleships are moving, and they are still pawns in this sick game of winner-takes- all.

We are all losers.

There is nothing left to take.

Just bring them home.

Bring them home today.

88 days

and the color of war is split-screen.

One eye on the future,
one trapped in the past.

We are in the Upside Down
with monsters at our back.

Bang bang, we shoot one down,
another takes its place.
This war is a breeding ground
and we’re giving in to hate.

Split us right, split us left,
split us from the world and then
split-screen rewatch, rewind, play
splitting, screaming lives won’t wait.

Bring them back

today.

89 days

They have names, you know.

They have faces and families and people who love them, aching every day that passes because the hole they left when they were taken fills with fears you couldn’t even dream of.

111 presumed alive.

22 confirmed dead.

Presumptions don’t comfort.

Confirmations swallow hope.

How do you live without living?

How do you grieve without a grave?

We say their names.

We tell their stories.

And we scream, bring them home.

90 days

Don’t get comfortable.

These are not habit-making lifestyle trends; these are lifestyle-breaking knives in the heart with agonizing twists and bends.

So don’t get comfortable.

Don’t just hit like and share and think that it is enough.

Don’t sit back and wait.

Don’t let them spend another day trapped.

Don’t brush it off.

Don’t look away.

Don’t get comfortable.

Bring them home.

91 days

My throat is aching.

I don’t know what I am doing, screaming into social media as though my voice is going to do something.

I can’t stop—we are the voice for the voiceless and they need us to be louder.

But my throat aches and it feels as though my screams are becoming background noise.

We need more voices.

We need our voices to join together and thunder through all that is broken to find our missing pieces and bring them back home.

And we need it now.

So raise your voice with me.

Shout as though your life depends on it, because their lives depend on it, and we’ll shake the world together.

Bring them home!

92 days.

Saturday again because time likes to mock us with its never-ending cycling of days and weeks and months.

So many things are trying to distract us.

The north, the sea, the politics, the beautiful blue sky.

Don’t get distracted.

Don’t stop screaming.

136 hostages.

Life paused, held captive, at risk…

And we are their hope.

Say it with me.

Bring them home.

93 days.

The 7th hits hard.

Three times around the moon and a leap into another year, but still, it is the 7th, and we are getting shot in our homes, burned in our cars, cut down in the middle of the road, and taken hostage to the darkest side of humanity where demons masquerade as freedom fighters and convince the world we deserved it.

Don’t look away.

We are missing.

Send out a signal, raise the alarm, where are we?

Trapped.

Alone.

Afraid.

Bring us home.

Please, bring us home.

94 days.

I want to stop.

I so badly want to stop writing every single day.

I want to have nothing to write about.

I want things to feel normal.

But every time I start to find a little bit of normal in all this chaos, I feel 136 stabs in the heart, reminding me how far from normal this is.

Normal was ripped away from us 94 days ago and we will never get it back.

We will recover. We will rebuild.

But we will have to reimagine what normal is.

It starts with bringing them home.

NOW.

95 days.

Our count-up is beginning to feel like a countdown as 100 looms.

Hitting 3-digit days is unacceptable.

And so we quicken our pace and share our anguish and shout remember to all who would rather forget.

Remember them as you eat, as you drink, as you sleep, as you walk, as you live, as you breathe.

Remember where they are and remember why.

Remember that we are stronger together and still falling apart.

Remember them as loud as you can.

Bring them home.

96 days.

Dear world, where are you? Why are you still so selectively silent? What is it about our little tiny slice of home that makes you turn your backs and, worse, bare your teeth as though we are the predatory monsters of nightmares?

We are burning with feverish hope that we can still fix this, that we can still bring them home, that we can still convince you somehow that we are not the bad guys in this story.

What would you do if it was your daughter languishing in a dark tunnel guarded by terrorists? What would you do if it was your son broken and beaten beyond repair? What would you do if it was your father, mother, sister, brother, or friend?

Would you stay silent then?

Would you be the monster?

Would you scream at the world?

You would.

You would do everything and anything to bring them home.

Dear world, please bring them home.

97 days

We stand accused.

Stuck between impossibilities, our focus is shaky.

Don’t lose sight of what is important.

Don’t stop to be a spectator; this show is not for us.

The changing winds are blowing stronger. The cold is setting in. We are freezing underground while preparing our defense.

Exhibit A: kidnapped.

Exhibit B: maimed.

Exhibit C: censored due to sensitive content unsuitable for this esteemed jester’s court.

We would rather be your laughingstock than give up on them. Go on, try to judge us harsher than we judge ourselves for 97 days of failure.

We have yet to bring them home.

98 days.

Once, when optimism was a viable source of comfort for me, I appealed to mothers in Gaza, hoping to reach across this gaping divide and find empathy.

But that was 73 days ago, and the sun was shining through clouds while we ran for shelter, so I thought I saw a bridge.

Bridges burn fast in this region, and now the mothers screaming from the border so their children know they never stopped trying to bring them home have exchanged their hopeful pleas for steel-eyed demands and rising fury.

When the devil steals your children, you must go deep into hell to bring them home.

You don’t survive hell without a scar.

And we are covered in them.

99 days

And the color of war is despair.

My throat is constricted, my heart no longer beats, I don’t have words to tell you what this means for every single one of us, but especially for them.

We are gathering together to surround them with support because they cannot carry this without us.

We are forming a wall of resilience so they can fall apart.

We know we are alone.

But we are alone together, and I don’t think the world understands what that means.

100 is coming.

We are masters of despair.

It is our rock bottom where we gather our strength to begin the climb up, where we take stock of who is there with us and who would keep us buried.

100 is coming.

We will bring them home.

100 days

There is a legend of a mother waiting for her son to return from beyond enemy lines.

He was a cruel man, but as a child, he belonged to her, and so she loved him.

She waited until she saw his empty chariot approach, and she let out 100 screams of anguish and pain. It was so powerful that the righteous were doomed to combat her cries with 100 blasts of a ram’s horn for centuries to come because if her cries were to get through, they would shatter the gates of heaven, and they would turn the world upside down.

Such is the strength of a mother’s cry.

The screams of all the mothers in this land of legends are building to a crescendo that no amount of horns can silence.

Let them be heard.

Let them break the world.

Let them bring them home.

Dear mothers, we hear your screams.