Trying desperately to stop family & friends from using the word “last” – like, “this is your LAST Shavuos here” or “this is the LAST time we go to Riverdale Farm” or some other Toronto landmark.
Yet I definitely felt the word LAST last night, celebrating Victoria Day (we’re the only people in the former British Empire to still do so) with our traditional downtown fireworks display.
Sitting on the beach I have sat on so many, many times in the last 25 years, plugging a child’s ears because he’s scared of the noise (though he enjoyed it infinitely more now that he has glasses), and wondering if this is the very last time we will enjoy fireworks.
And scared for what kind of noises that little boy will hear in his new home, so close to Lebanon, so close to Syria, so close to enemies on all sides, when he realizes that not everybody thinks Israel is God’s gift to… well, to the Jewish people, like we do.
Sitting there, sad and scared and yet, enjoying the experience, bitter-sweetly.
I’ve always thought that fireworks must be a traumatizing experience for people from war-torn regions… just never realized they could be one for a mama on her way into one.
(for any family members or sticklers reading this - yes, this isn’t the last fireworks we’ll be here for, but we skip Canada Day fireworks if the holiday comes out during the Three Weeks, like it does this year…)
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