Where Have All The Flowers Gone

Last night my friend Rena, two of my kids, and I took Bubbie Channah out for dinner for her birthday. Bubbie's birthday this year is turning out to be like a Polish Wedding...and why not as night after night more people are inviting her out to celebrate her 83 years and wish her many more yet to come.

At dinner, of course, we discussed the War. We were an interesting group. The three of us 'old folks' were wives of soldiers, the two 'youngsters' were soldiers,and everyone had an opinion.

Between the courses of salad and chicken and hamburgers we talked and shared views, concerns, hopes. The interesting thing is that, both young and old, we didn't want to end this war until the job was done. Once and for all, we knew that somehow we had to fight off world opinion as we fight off the evil that is surrounding us and wants to see us dead.

Naturally, I kvelled as I watched my family sit across the generation gaps and simply talk. How marvellous. How special.

When I woke up this morning I thought about my kids, my little hot house flowers that I have worked so hard to raise. As a parent I have spent my life trying to keep them safe. When they got sick, G-d forbid, I ran to the doctors. Everyone, especially my husband used to laugh at how at the first sign of a cold or fever or ache, I ran the the doctors. Of course, I ran. What do I know? We spend enough money for health insurance so that I can run to the doctor, talk to him with his big degrees on his wall, and then know what to do for my babies, and most of all, sleep well at night because I have done the best I could for them.

Then I had to send them off to the army and watch and pray as they had a new set of parents.

About the years of the intifada where every morning we didn't know who would be coming home again at night, I'm not going to talk about right now.

Now I watch as War is all around us. We, here in Jerusalem, still are walking around freely. We only have the threat of 'maybe' an attack and are not sitting in fallout shelters or displaced like our family up north.

I woke up this morning and Pete Seeger's song, Where Have all the Flowers Gone started playing in my mind.

Those were the days. The sexy sixties. Free love, flower children. Life was good until the Vietnam War. Remember?

To all my left wing friends, who hacked me a chaynik (banged me a kettle) to Give Peace a Chance, let me tell you that first of all We Shall Overcome,and finally to paraphrase Woodie Guthrie...THIS LAND IS OUR LAND.

Have a great day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.