How are the kids?

Everyone ALWAYS asks me how are the kids? How are they coping? So I have some answers prepared for that. “They’re OK” , “they’re handling it pretty well, given the situation”. Or your personal favorite - “slowly, slowly.”

But how are they really doing?

Well, the truth is complex of course. Not for street conversation. Even though everyone who asks - at the store, in the elevator, on the way wherever - really wants to know, is really concerned. I know that. But what can you do?

So let’s start with Tomer. Wow amir how much I see you in him. First, he is a master denier. Just like you when you were sick and denied it for so long. Or before you were sick, if you knew someone was a bad egg, you’d just pretend not to know that so everyone could be friends. So Tomer is just avoiding this whole thing in the most fantastic way. Mostly because he just says straight up – Mom, when I think of dad I get so sad. So I don’t let myself think about it. And I don’t want to think about him. It’s too hard.

And it seems to be working for him. He still smiles and laughs a lot. He’s still got that joie de vivre you had. And he lives in his own world and he knows who he is. Just like you. I really admire him.

One thing though is that he now quit all his sports – basketball, soccer and judo, boom all at once. I know that they weren’t making him happy anymore and it’s not really him, so im letting it go. We’ll focus on swimming and things he really likes like maybe theater, art, D&D, stuff like that. Oh and he’s still in Kapuera for now. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Last Saturday we all went to the sportek. Tomer rollerbladed. And he went around the ring about a hundred times. Even though he’s still slow and shaky, I was happy to see his determination. It reminded me of the first time I took you rollerblading. You put on the skates and stepped out on that same ring and stomped your feet up and down like to get the feel of the weight of them. You took a few baby strides forward, gave me a puzzled look of a small child and 2 minutes later you were skating backwards and doing spins.

From that day on, whenever you wore your rollerblades, you couldn’t take them off, sometimes until you went to bed! I remember before we had kids how we used to rollerblade at night together up and down our street. And how every Yom Kippur, after fasting all night long, you’d go rollerblading for hours to finish it off and come back just in time to break the fast. AND, all the Saturdays when you’d take the boys out to the park, them on their bikes and you on the rollerblades, pushing Dean along so he could pass Tomer and feel good about himself. And you’d put the GoPro camera on your head and everyone who passed would stare. You couldn’t care less. Ahh, I mustn’t ever forget these memories!!!!!

Well, back to kids. Dean….Dean…Dean….well, from the minute you left home when chemo started, you started sending me messages on how to cope with Dean. You were so worried about him. And when you got the strength and were clear headed, the first thing you did was sms me advice or tips on how to deal. I’ll never forget that. In your moments of relief and clarity, that was all you cared about. So I think that now, things are starting to move in a more positive direction. A neurologist said he was ADD, but I am not rushing to put him on Ritalin or anything (don’t worry), but with this, the school is giving him extra help and it seems to be working. He talks about you A LOT. He misses you A LOT. Today he took his journal to school. It’s funny, he has a hard time with his writing homework, but when he has to write a birthday card for a friend or in his journal, he can just go on and on and on. He wrote about you in his journal (I read it of course – there’s no privacy here, lol) and it’s very sweet and makes me cry.

Lia is ….i just hope you’re watching this. This ..this….creature of joy is all I can call her. She’s so funny. And happy and smart. I CANT BELIEVE you are missing all this. But I still don’t accept all this, so I believe that you are somehow aware of her. Of her amazingness.

Oh and one more thing, thank you for all the songs on the radio. I feel like our channel of communication is wide open sometimes. There’s nothing like being alone in my car (YOUR car) with the radio. It’s all about energy, energy is waves, radio waves…it all makes sense ...

Love u baby.