Yesterday, we said goodbye to the Tabacs. They returned to Majorca. That’s the way to do things, you come, you give birth, you return to a normal country. You’re so clever!!! Hanna and I met as a doula and a mother-to-be. She contacted me through Facebook while she was still in Majorca. When they arrived to Israel we met, we fell in love and then we shared a birth.
After birth there is always this dance. I am never quite sure if it is time to let go. We, women, many times have this difficulty to let the doula or midwife (or both) go after the birth, and sometimes, same as with children, it’s my role as a doula is to let her go when she cannot let go of me. But once in a while I find out that it turned into a real friendship, independent of the original reason why we met in the first place, but rather stands on its own.
Once in every few years God sends me this gift. A new friend gets into my heart and I get into hers. A candy. Something extra. Hanna is with undoubtedly my gift for 2014, a new friend, a one who is here to stay. She got straight into my and everyone’s heart like she has always lived there. Not to mention the amount of selfies we did during the last months with Hanna, more than we did in our entire life. The kids see Hanna and immediately take position for a selfie.
So we parted yesterday. Papouch, the baby, slept all along. She probably doesn’t like goodbyes. I wept on Hanna’s shoulder, the kids were excited and Hanna was very cool, but she can’t fool me. She’s crazy about us. She made me as a goodbye gift a booklet with many flowers on its cover and songs in its belly. A “Songs for the road” booklet and in the bottom of every song she added a typical “Hannaish” comment, both hilarious and touching. I told her, you know, I am crying because the breakup from you is very difficult to me but also because I realized that we are going on a way full of goodbyes. Yes, we’ll meet new people, but also say many goodbyes. It’s like wondering about what you have more in life ups or downs.
After Hanna left and I read in the booklet she made me, touching-tearing pieces from my heart, I went upstairs and cried bitterly in bed. The children followed me one by one, gathered around me, surrounded my shaking body with their sweet bodies and hugged me. “We love you, mom!”, concluded the elder seriously.
And then we went to the library and he suddenly said, “mom, you know, today’s curses have absolutely no imagination. What’s that ‘son of a bitch’ or ‘asshole’. Where’s the creativity. I suggest ‘dirt licker'”. And I thought to myself, oh boy, I am taking them out of the system, a minute before it’s too late.
