Awful Moments

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
27 September '10


I live in an amazing city, perched on the hills just to the east of Jerusalem. It is considered a suburb of Jerusalem in many ways, though it is a city in its own right. A city of 45,000 people. We have many of our own facilities...we even had a movie theater for a long time. We have our own ambulance squad, though most of the actual ambulances are "on loan" from Jerusalem.

What that means is that in the moments after a terrorist attack, when they call all ambulances, three of our ambulances are called as well. For years, during the worst of the second intifada, that's how I knew there had been an attack - even before the media. I'd hear sirens and I became addicted. It was a way of dealing with the stress and even when things calmed down, to this very day, I listen for sirens and try to see the road to count. One ambulance means little - an accident at home, hopefully a woman giving birth, a normal incident. Two is likely more serious - usually a car accident.

Three is only one thing - a terrorist attack. The sirens wail as they fly up to Jerusalem. Three was what I dreaded seeing and when I did, I would go to the computer, the radio, the TV back when I had one...anything to catch a glimpse and then realize I was in those awful moments when I knew before the news was reporting.

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