Don’t be Scared

The first call came Friday night around 2a.m, I think. All I remember is the phone ringing and my not being able to tell if it was real or my dream. When I answered it, I was so tired that it took me several minutes to recognize my mom. “Don’t be scared,” she said, which is the way we always start a conversation if bad news is about to follow. She continued to explain that two major synagogues in Istanbul were bombed, but that I shouldn’t worry because they were all accounted for and alive. Jake’s brother, who moved to Istanbul a week ago, was also safe and sound.

I got up and read about the events in all the papers I could find. I read the Times and CNN and several Turkish papers and then I went back to sleep. The next morning I talked to my mom again. She said both synagogues had Bar mitzvahs scheduled and my parents were invited and had decided not to attend. Otherwise, they would have been in the synagogue at the time of the bombings. I asked if they knew anyone who was affected. A friend of mine’s fiancee’s brother, she said, was a guard at the synagogue and only 19. He is no longer alive. Another friend’s mother was taking her granddaughter to school, Both dead.

Last night, my cell phone rang around 3a.m. I had told my friend Tara, who lives in Ireland and was working on a college application which was due today, that she could call me if she needed a last look before she sent her paper in. So when the call came and I saw a long number on my caller-id, I assumed it was she. But it was my mom again and she started with, “Don’t be scared,” again. She said “Bad things are happening here and I don’t want you to be worried. We’re all fine and at home, I am still looking for Jake’s brother, call his parents.” I told her that I didn’t want to call them unless we knew he was okay so could she please call me back. I went back to bed with my cell phone. She called back in fifteen minutes and said she had found him and he was okay. I called my father in law, read some of the web sites and went back to bed. I was to wake up in two hours and report to a twelve-hour workday. I had an 8A.M. meeting that I still hadn’t fully prepared for. Sleep must have eventually come because I remember looking at my clock around 4:50 and then again at 6:15. Right after I arrived at work, my mom called again and said that they were all at my sister’s and very shaken but alive.

I remember the Tuesday morning of September 11th clearly and how thankful I felt that my dad was able to reach us before the phone lines went dead. In the twelve years I have lived in the United States, I have never had to wake up to the phone calls I have received in the last week. I am not sure how many more of them I can take. I am even more scared of the possibility that after another such horrible incident, they might not come. Moving back home has crossed my mind more often this week than ever before. I know that I can’t protect them if I am there but at least I can live each day with them and be there. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense but I genuinely don’t know how to deal with this situation.

It also made me think a lot more about the insignificant worries that get in the way of my living my life with joy and how perspective only comes with tragedy. I am not naive enough to think such events never occurred before but I do know that they have suddenly become a lot more prominent in my life than ever before and I haven’t fully figured out how to cope. Not that I want to learn to cope with this.