When Celebrating Robs Victims of Terror - Australia Fails Again.

 Many years ago, a man lost his wife to a sudden illness and then, 10 months later, remarried. As friends, we were invited to the wedding and while I was so happy for the man, the woman, and the child who would have a new mother, something in me ached for the deceased wife. I felt his sweet and quiet first wife at the wedding and mourned for her again. And for some illogical reason, I felt...I wish he'd waited the full year, given her that extra time of mourning. It was a silly feeling...there was no question how devastated he and the child were and they would mourn her forever.

Two more months would not have changed their grief and it was a gift that he found another love so quickly. His second wife was also someone I knew, an amazing woman who stood by his side for the rest of his life and took care of his child, now grown, in the years since he passed. Too soon, I thought. I was wrong. It wasn't too soon.

What's this all about? Sydney celebrated their New Year's Day with fireworks and great fanfare. One media site says it was the largest fireworks display ever.

And I sat watching their celebration, I felt the sweet and amazing ones we lost...little Matilda, only 10 years old when she was gunned down. I thought of Rav Eli Schlanger who stepped forward to beg for the lives of his people, only to be brutally gunned down by the monsters. I thought of Alexander, the candy man, and the brave Boris and Sofia who tried to fight. 

And each of the victims murdered just 16 days ago. I listened to the fireworks and I thought of the sound of gunfire and my heart broke again.

I watched the beautiful bridge and the celebration and thought...I wish they'd waited...given the victims some time, not even extra time, but just some time of mourning, of picking up the pieces of the lives destroyed by the hatred they allowed to fester in their midst.

Too soon. As I watched the fireworks and this time, I remember that wedding. Then, I was wrong. Now? Now, I'm right. Too soon. How horribly inappropriate. 16 days. There are victims still in the hospital, including Gefen Biton who was severely injured because unlike the Australian police, he stepped into the line of fire. Like Boris. Like Sofia. Like Rav Eli.

Fireworks...the sounds of explosions, of gunfire. 

How inappropriate, how cruel, how wrong.

 
Happy New Year, Australia...and to the Jews of Australia, please God, start packing.