At 7:58 we all went into a room, the lights off, the windows open.
I looked out and saw all my neighbors all around us, standing at their windows too, hands behind their backs, heads down, faces etched in grief. This year their shoulders were hunched over, some unable to stand still, pacing while we waited.
We stood quietly, with trepidation, and within a few moments, the first Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Memorial Day) siren began.
It started with a lurch, a tug at the navel, and an extra beat of my heart as the wailing grew louder and louder; the seconds ticking by.
I held my son, because he too, was as nervous as the rest of us tonight- for how can we truly begin to face our grief at this moment?
Tonight we mourn for every person that has been taken from us- this year and every year since we created this wonderous, complicated country.
I closed my eyes, hot tears welling up, spilling over my cheeks, and gave myself to the siren.
I let its howl fill me, feeling it take up every crevice and corner and when it stopped, it felt like it was leaving too soon.
Its cry matched what I was feeling inside and I didn't want it to end. It felt like the guttural scream that's been living locked up in my throat for seven months- unfastening something that I've been attempting to bat down in this storm.
Now my grief is loose, ragged, and on the surface.
When the siren stopped, we could hear it pulling away through the different neighborhoods, an echo that called through each street, each window frame with another grieving soul with a bowed head.
I thought tonight that it would frighten me- that I would be sent back to the adrenaline and the need to run. That I would be overwhelmed and inclined to hide under my covers and numb myself from everything we've lost.
But tonight it cried with me and I felt a oneness that I sorely needed.
We mourn in a community; and across this beautiful country, millions of people stood side by side,
window by window, holding space for all those we have loved and lost, all those who died because they were Jews, or because they loved, lived, or defended this country.
We will never forget you, as we live and build this place and a better future for us all-
We will always hold you tenderly in our broken hearts.
Am Yisrael Chai.
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