Blowing Kisses

Mo and I spent the afternoon yesterday with an Israeli colleague of mine and his wife.  They are stopping through LA on their way back to Israel after having lived for the last few years in the States.  I'd never really known this colleague very well, he had been living in the South.  We've talked on the phone a number of times and in the last couple of years, I'd written several grants for him.  But, he had called me right after we lost Max to tell me of the loss of his own son, 12 years previous, and to lend me his support.

His son was 4 years and 9 months old.  The youngest of three children - the baby.  His mommy worked in the Kibbutz Library and could see him playing in his kindergarten class through the library window.  Throughout the day, he would see her too and blow kisses to her.  He was sweet and cute with a head full of curly hair.  He died from complications of the flu.  It happened overnight.

After his death she couldn't go back to the library.  She could hardly stand being in the kibbutz, full of the children her son once played with.  Her husband (my colleague) was offered emissary gig in the United States and they left.  They needed to escape.

Since that time, they have escaped many times and always come back.  They adopted a beautiful little girl, then two years old who is now twelve, from China.  They have two beautiful grandchildren.  They kept on living.  But every morning as soon as she wakes up and then again just before bed - and many, many time throughout every day - she thinks of him and how he used to blow her kisses.  Her heart is forever broken.  Of course it is.