Apr 18 2007
Lightning Strikes
When I was 15, I found myself back in Jerusalem. I knew I’d be going back. I’d prepared myself. Jerusalem held a huge chunk of my heart, but it also held my worst memories–the stuff that nightmares are made of. Real nightmares, not just dreams.
But I was strong. I could be okay. I could smell the spices and hear the prayers and see the towers out my window. I was strong. Everyone had already decided that I was, so I must have been.
One night, as I slept in my bed, an explosion went off nearby. I leapt out of the soft realm of sleep into the harsh world. One explosion. Then another. And then the sounds of shattering glass.
I knew these sounds already. But these were close, much too close.
But where were the alarms? Where was the air raid siren? And why was I the only one who seemed to be aware that we were under attack?
My heart was racing, my ears were throbbing to the point that I could no longer hear anything but my own pulse. It was all up to me. It was all on my frail shoulders. This building housed nearly 200 people but no one seemed to be hearing what I was hearing. That realization was terrifyingly lonely and too overwhelming. But they had to be saved, and apparently they had to be saved by me.
I ran to the living room but from there the fear or the responsibility or both paralized me. I just stood there shaking and gasping for air, for time, for clarity.
And then another explosion.
Except that there was lightning with it.
And with a wave of relief, as though someone were pouring warm water over me, I suddenly understood that there was no bomb, no fire, no shattered glass. Just thunder and lightning and hail hitting the windows. I giggled, I guess, because maybe it was funny. But the giggles quickly turned into sobs of despair as I collapsed into a pathetic heap on the floor. I had just learned something about myself, something too unbearable: I wasn’t over it yet. For all my preparation, all my rationalization, all my suppression, I just simply wasn’t over it yet!
How could I not be over it? It had been years by now. And I was so strong! I cried and cried and prayed for forgiveness for my weakness. I was so sorry–so incredibly sorry. I was letting everyone down. It was unacceptable to act like this. I wasn’t allowed to feel fear or despair, and here I was breaking all the rules. And I was so ashamed.
And I knew that I could never tell them that I wasn’t over it. It was hard enough admitting it to myself, and then to God. And besides, to them, there wasn’t ever really anything to get over. And it would be terribly, terribly inconvenient to them for me to suddenly let them know. They were all counting on me to be okay. And if I wasn’t, then they’d have to deal with me, and what did they know about that?
So I resolved never to let them know. They would never know about the fool I’d made of myself that night in the living room. I would go on acting as though it had all just been an interesting history lesson. Emotionless, for emotion was weakness. And by now, I was so good at the role I had cast myself in and I had the whole script memorized. It wasn’t going to be so hard.
And so I willed my pulse to stop racing and the tears to stop falling. I pulled myself up off the floor and walked slowly and deliberately back to my bed, back to being strong.
I had been awakened to my own frailty that night. But when daylight arrived, they would never know the difference.
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Wow, I love this. I know you so well yet sometimes I feel like I . . . well, don’t!
Thanks for writing and teaching us all something.
Wow. What an experience.
That must have been so difficult.
You are brave to be so strong.
Wow.
I am new to your blog, so could you tell me why you were in Jerusalem?
I am fascinated by that place.
I would love to go to the Holy Land some day. There is a group from several churches in our area that is going later this year. This group is being led by a Lutheran minister that I admire, but I just won’t be able to swing that kind of cash.
GF
Ooohh…I had chills.
When I was pregnant, I had really crazy dreams and I was really parnoid about ‘the world’. There were a couple of times it stormed and I woke up convinced we were being bombed. Like, in that panic mode…but it got worse when I saw the lightning because of the way it was hitting in the distance. I was so scared it took forever to calm down and go to bed.
Yours sounds much scarier. I think you are strong, if for nothing else than writing about it.
Hi! I love the name of your blog. I’m such a Lewis Carrol nut.
This was an excellent post. I’m hooked.
wow!! I’m not exactly sure what I should say. Since I am still relatively new here, and I don’t know any of the back story to this. I just couldn’t even imagine, that fear. I’ve had fear,and some paralyzing, but wow.
When you post like this I say to myself “Self, you’re a silly twit, look, someone else has something really meaningful to say, now go get some balls and write about your meaningful stuff.”
And then I reply to myself (yeah, I actually do) and say “Nah, I’d rather write about my dog, my neighbor, and how old I feel… she has set the bar too high.”
Kateastrophe,
Aww, thanks, dear. You’re so good to me.
Janet,
Thank you. I still don’t feel strong. I’m REALLY good at pretending at it, though. And I guess sometimes you just “fake it till you make it”, right?
Gunfighter and Burfica,
As for the “back story” I haven’t really talked about it much, so you won’t find it, even if you go searching through my archives and spend hours, nay, DAYS there, since I know that that’s what you’re dying to do. But here it is in a nutshell, and I’ll probably right a “real post” on it sometime soon. Anyway, my Mom is an Ancient Scripture and Ancient History Professor. She was teaching with BYU, who has a center there (that’s more like a “fortress” than a University). The first time we were there, I was 12. We were there for six months and the first Gulf War took up two of those months. I spent many nights in bomb shelters, we carried our gas masks everywhere, there was gun fire everywhere I went, and from a distance I heard bombs and explosions. My family and I received bomb threats and death threats and all that good stuff. I was even attacked one day by a couple of 20-something guys in a dark tunnel–I wasn’t hurt, but I was duly terrified. Anyway, we went back to Jerusalem 3 years later, this time not during a “war”–but there’s kind of ALWAYS a war there.
Wow. Who needs me to post a “real post” now? There it all is, in a nutshell.
Butrfly,
Oh, pregnancy nightmares are the absolute worst. I don’t think there’s anything “scarier” about my story.
Super Des,
Welcome, and thanks! I promise it’s not always doom and gloom here…
Melissavina,
Hahaha. You get that you totally crack me up, right? I read the posts about your dog and your neighbor and think, “wow. I wish I were that clever and funny!” Thanks, though. You’re very sweet.
Wow. You seem to have lived a very interesting life. I think I would definitely been traumatized for life being attacked!
Were you angry or resentful that your mom brought you to Jerusalem?
You ARE strong - to be able to ‘fake it til you make it’. On my first night staying in Belfast before the start of my second year at University our whole house shook as a bomb went off down the road in a government building. I lay and cried most of the night, and just wanted to run home to my Mum! Govt buildings being bombed wasn’t even that uncommon an occurence, but nothing on the scale of the warzones you describe.
Wow! What a powerful post. You never cease to Amaze me.
Powerful stuff.
Sometimes it never leaves you. I was in the first Gulf War and was involved in some pretty ugly stuff, and it still comes back at the worst possible times.
Thanks for writing this.
Charles