By Mrs. Mishi Harari
It’s almost that time. It’s been creeping up on me ever so slowly that I almost didn’t realize it’s just around the corner. Yet suddenly it’s just a few short months away and I feel as if the people I have come to know so well, and love even more, are already fading out of my everyday life and more into the memory of what I treasure so much. It’s amazing, really, what people can do for your life. Those that make you laugh, those that listen, those that jump your car when you’re not even in town. There are people who come by just to give you a hug, somehow knowing that you needed one at that moment. There are people you may see only every few weeks, yet you share a bond with them you can never explain, a bond that many will never understand. There are the people whose faces I see that bring a sense of comfort, happiness. The sound of their voices is uplifting, and their camaraderie is of a caliber that can never be replaced. They are my people. All of them. They are my neighbors and my Battalion family. They are my closest friends and they have etched away a part of my heart that I will have no choice but to leave back here with them.
Sometimes I feel like this stack of pancakes. It started upright, strong and purposeful. Then slowly it started to cave and topple over, just as my emotions have begun to do over the past few weeks. Yet looking at this plate, I see the perfection in what has fallen. It’s the perfection of all the relationships that have been glued together by those hugs, smiles, phone calls, time spent together, and time spent apart. And that gluey perfection is what will come along with me as I prepare to say goodbye to the people who I can’t imagine living my daily life without. It will hurt, and I may want to topple over. And yet I know we’re all in this together and no matter where we all go from here, I will look back and forward, gratefully, at the people in good ol’ Kansas who have changed my life forever. In the meantime, those pancakes are calling, and I must go…
Originally published in the Shavuos 5782 Jewish-American Warrior
