Without a Rifle

For years, an intensive part of a combat soldier's training includes the knowledge that his rifle is a part of him. He must always know where it is and that it is properly secured. Either it is strapped to him, next to him, or dismantled and stored safely. It is second nature for them to enter a room and evaluate where it can be stored.

High out of reach and safe from children, close enough if needed. You can't imagine what goes through their minds, almost instantaneously. Years ago, it was decided that when a soldier went out on a break, he returned his weapon. Not always, but in some units.

Then a soldier who was home stood up to the challenge and the promise he had made when he donned the uniform. A terrorist came into the store where he was shopping. Tuvia Yanai Weissman, only 21 years old when he was murdered, went shopping with his wife Yael and their young baby and when shouts were heard, Tuvia went running to defend. Only he didn't have a rifle because army regulations required him to leave it behind when he went out on family leave.

Since then, the army changed the regulations and more soldiers are going home armed. Davidi came home each week with his rifle and often carried it with him when going out. This past Sunday, he came home without it.

After more than two years in the army, he has returned it. It will be given to another soldier, child of another soldier's mother. It is yet another major step in this process of leaving the army, a major one that is very real and anything but symbolic.

I'm so close...soon, he will give back his uniforms and return to his yeshiva. Soon he will sleep more or less when he wants, wear what he wants, eat what and when he wants to.

For me, it is the closing of 11 years of my life...or so I want to believe. The truth is, even this week, one of my son's is being called to Reserve duty. I'll be a soldier's mother for anothe 18 years, until David turns 40, God willing.

I can't see that far ahead. I can't see past the next few days. When I started this blog and for all the years that I have been writing here, there was one post above all others I was terrified of having to write. In the most maudlin of times, I would wonder if I would ever write it or simply shrivel up and die instead.

I have been blessed to have three sons in the army, in combat units, and despite many times that I worried, that I feared to the depths of my soul, I have been so blessed.

David came home with a bit of a bloodied lip this week. My heart froze for a second, even as I realized that he was fine and smiling. I asked him what happened - he was playing ping pong and another pivoted left and as David pivoted right.

I told him it was one of my greatest fears that he would get hurt in the army and he was quick to assure me that he'd been bruised and cut plenty. But he's home now, without his rifle, and I am at peace.

No, not the peace of nations, but the peace of a mother who will soon stand down in many ways as much as my son is about to stand down. When he was called, he stepped forward and I am very proud of him for doing that.

Where will I go? Will I continue to write here? I don't know. All I can tell you is that for now, I can feel the relief coming to me; I can taste the wonder of a day where my fears are as every mothers.

I am, above all, grateful to God for the post I never wrote and pray with all of my soul that I never will. I often felt I was tempting fate by starting these blogs and I prayed that God would forgive me and watch over my sons.

Three sons. Eleven years. My babies are almost all grown. Three have children already. I am called "Savta" - grandma...by the babies of my babies.

Eleven years ago, my youngest turned 7...now, my oldest grandchild is less than half a year from the same age. Eleven years ago, the army was a huge unknown; now I understand it so much better.

Eleven years ago, I promised myself that I would take this journey one day at a time...and mostly I did. Where too from here? I don't know. Stay tuned, I guess.