Remembering to remember

[A guest post for Israel's Memorial Day by my daughter, Ariella]

Stop. Everyone off the bus. It's in a minute.

Everyone understands. Everyone gets up and files off the bus quietly.

As we gather on the sidewalk I look around. Soldiers and civilians stand as one. The soldiers start to put on their כומתות (berets). I'm one of them.

And then it starts.

The siren wails loudly for all that we have lost, and in that moment everything stops. Nothing else matters. No matter where you are from, who you are, you are connected. To the loss. The pain. The remembering. You remember someone you knew, someone important and special who used to be the world.

And then all at once it ends. Just as suddenly as it began. And we all get back on the bus.

But none of us are the same. We all remember.

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