Editor’s Note: The following originally appeared as Chezi Goldberg’s weekly column, “Lifeline,” in the June 27, 2003 issue of The Jewish Press. The column takes on added poignancy in the wake of Chezi’s murder last week by a Palestinian suicide bomber.
I was sitting in a meeting on King George Street when suddenly I heard the most powerful explosion in my life. Out of shock, I slipped off my swivel chair. The folks I was sitting with and I looked at each other and understood what had happened.
For a long minute there was nothing. Silence. Deafening, deadly silence. The type of silence that rules the air after something tragic happens, but the world isn’t ready to accept it just yet.
And then came a siren. Then another. Then a flood of sirens careened by the window. From all over came a symphony of clashing sirens. This symphony had no harmony. It was evil-sounding and brought a chill to my bones.
We all knew.
I slammed my hand down on the desk. “NO.” I didn’t want to accept what had happened. I called my wife. “I don’t know what just happened, but I know it was bad. I wanted you to know that I am okay.”
We got off the phone. Then I started to shake. Then the tears came. “No, No, No,” came the denial from a voice deep inside of me, choking on a bitter piece of reality.
I closed up and started to make my way down to Zion Square to catch the bus home. I reached my bus stop and looked in the direction of where my bus to Betar comes from. In its place stood a sea of ambulances, cops, army jeeps and security personnel, running back and forth, trying to make some sense out of the confusion and terror.
I watched helplessly, along with many others, waiting for our buses to take us home, all the while staring at an idle bus blown to smithereens by a suicidal madman bent on seeing Jewish blood flow in the streets.
Imagine how strange. I was waiting to take my bus home, which was somehow a comforting image. And yet, 100 meters away, were strewn bodies of innocent people who had climbed their bus, homeward bound only an hour earlier, in the hope that they too would reach the comfort of their home. So close, and yet so far.
Eventually, I did come home.
Hours passed. I was still shaking from the blast. It went off in my ”mind’s ear” over and over again. The scene played over and over like a rerun on a late night channel. And a certain thought kept scrolling by, as the scene repeated itself in my head.
Home. I was so lucky to be home tonight. Amidst this terrible tragedy and its unraveling aftermath, somehow a thought of gratitude was engraving itself on my soul forever. So many people who were heading home would never be there tonight. And they wouldn’t be there tomorrow night either.
Home. Those of us who were home tonight were truly blessed.
Do we realize the blessings in our life? Do we stop to take stock of what is good in our lives? Do we appreciate those people who are in our lives today? Or do we only appreciate people in our lives when they are no longer here?
The trauma of the bus attack left a searing emotional scar. The sounds, feelings, sensations remain. Just today, a packed Number 14 bus pulled up and, for a moment, I hesitated to board. Trauma leaves its fingerprints on our lives. We struggle to return to ”normal” life, as it were. Part of me wonders if we ever really do return to normal life – or do we just proceed, waiting for the other shoe to drop?
There is another side to trauma and to traumatic events that we experience and survive in life. It is the side that serves as a wake-up call. It is the side that causes us to wave off an annoyance, an annoyance that seemed so important, but today seems so trivial. It is the side of tragedy that forces us to appreciate what we have, while we have it.
It is the side of tragedy that brings us to the realization that each and every one of us is mortal, and no one knows when our individual time clock will expire.
Maybe the best way we can memorialize the victims of the bus bombing is by making tomorrow a day of introspection, a day of cheshbon hanefesh, a day to evaluate and reevaluate our lives.
Pirkei Avos teaches that we should live each day as if it were our last. Imagine if we really lived our lives according to that motto!
We are blessed to be able to be at home, to be alive. What we do with that blessing is the ultimate test.
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