Ima 2 Eight

I packed up for our big move to Israel early. It made a lot of sense under the circumstances. My parents really wanted us to come for our annual extended stay in our magical place, Cape Cod. So why lose out on rental income on our US house by delaying the inevitable?

So I made plans to have our lift picked up seven weeks before we left the country, and we cleared ourselves and 12 years of living in the US out of our home three weeks before leaving for Israel. I tried to have a plan. I tried to be organized. I tried to get it all in the right bags: donate, sell, bring to Israel, bring to Cape Cod, bring to Cape Cod, then Israel…. I am sure you can imagine just how much reality fell short of that goal.

We got out of our house a full 36 hours later than we said we would. And someone went back to get something I left there after that! But I was fairly confident that I had put the important things where they need to be.

Something inevitably was going to fall through the cracks, and I prepared for that eventuality. We will buy new whatever it is, I told myself.

But I wasn’t prepared for it to be my daughter’s precious case full of items that are very sentimental to her. I can buy her a new case, some new trinkets, but I can never, ever repay the emotional value of the items that are now missing. My heart breaks. She hasn’t yelled or screamed. She remains optimistic that it will “pop up”. I, in contrast, have dreams of the case in free fall down into an abyss. I am so scared that it was left behind and that our renters threw it away without any idea what it was, or something equally awful. For now, I am grateful that it is hurting me more than it is hurting her.

I know that our road home to Israel will be paved with many, many bumps, twists and turns. I just hoped the little heartbreaks along the way could be mine, and not the kids.

I also know that this period of transition is part of the process, and that I have to accept many things won’t go as I hope, many things will be hard for my kids, and many things I just won’t be able fix quickly and easily.

Still – please, Hashem, make all the falling through the cracks from hereon in be MY stuff…..