The Sound of Sirens

By Belinda

 A brief pause in the story of our own past harrowing family journey...

One fact not often mentioned about Baby Boomers; my generation; is that we grew up with the shock waves of a war we never knew.

 I've written about some of those shock waves at various times here, but I've never mentioned the sound of sirens and the effect they had on Mum. A factory siren sounding the end of a work day, would take her back in a second to the terror of the bombing of Rotterdam. While her street survived, her city was all but demolished on May 14th 1940 during the German invasion of Holland. Second hand, we grew up knowing the terror of war.

 Today, listening to updates on the news of the bombing in Gaza and the rockets firing into Israel, I was thinking of a friend in Tel Aviv, a woman I came to know through my friend Dave's blog, and whom I tried to meet up with last year in Israel. We didn't manage to connect face to face due to timing, but we connect occasionally still through her blog still.

 I went to her blog, Beneath the Wings, to make sure she was okay, and one of her posts pointed me to another Israeli's blog, and a post that is worth reading, When 10 Minutes Feels Like Ten Years.

 What I love about the blogosphere is being able to read a fellow human being's experience of the events unfolding in the world. The analysis on the nightly news and the slick spin of political leaders doesn't grab my heart as do the words of a person at a keyboard just like mine, tapping out their heart in a blog post somewhere across the world.

 To those friends in Israel--and fellow human beings in Gaza--know that our prayers are with you.

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