When our family arrives from Israel, we have our little ritual at the airport. Both sets of grandparents anxiously hang out in the waiting area. When the children see us,they come tearing down the hall into our arms.Andy's mom has snacks like tangerines and juice for the children and Odwalla juice for my daughter. We hear about their adventures on the plane. This last time, our youngest, almost five, was a trooper and sat the entire flight busy with art projects and watching videos without falling apart. This was nothing short of a miracle as in the past my son in law had to walk him back and forth for hours. Our middle granddaughter made it without getting airsick.Another small miracle.
I marvel at the fact that even though we had not seen them for six months, it is as though they live across the city, not across the world. I attribute this to the marvels of modern technology. They see us on Skype, at least a few times a week. This is not to say it is a perfect visit, with the three grandchildren calmly chatting and telling us about their day. Usually one of them is hanging off the desk chair, another is doing gymnastics in the background and someone else is fussing about whatever. I used to say "be careful" so often when I thought they would get hurt, they started calling me "Savta- Be- Careful."
Often because of the time difference, when we talk to them in the morning, they are exhausted after their busy days. We try to see them every week before the Sabbath which is inherently a hectic time. They have finished their baths, they are wearing Shabbat clothes or sometimes just their jammies and their parents are rushing with the final preparations before the Sabbath. The computer gets shut off. We won't talk to them then until Sunday.
However hearing our voices and just seeing us even for a few minutes every week, even hanging upside down, makes them feel close to us. Both sets of grandparents have made many trips to Israel and the children will be waiting on the balcony when we get out of the cab excited to jump in our arms as though we just saw them without any distance between us.
We are thrilled that our Israeli family will be here for six weeks. They did a house exchange with old friends from Berkeley who are staying in their house in Jerusalem. This is great for all of us. They have a home base and don't need to shlep quite as much to see everyone as we can go to them. They will take some little trips and the children will go to summer camp for two weeks as well. And I get a break from constantly cooking and cleaning which I do when they are in my house though we will have them over often.
My oldest granddaughter spent a night alone at our house and it was a pleasure to have her. I took her for a manicure, to the kosher bakery for borrekas, to Amba (the only kosher restaurant in Oakland) for dinner and of course there was a little shopping interspersed in there. At nine, she is fun to be with. Our middle granddaughter went with her Poppa and helped him deliver Meals on Wheels . Her treat was a big scoop of Baskin Robins ice cream. The other grandparents who equally adore our little ones (and we gladly share our time with them) took the children swimming and shoe shopping. We all went to the Oakland zoo one day. We had a BBQ at our house. This was just in one week!! Because our children observe the Kosher dietary laws strictly, there are hardly any places to go out to eat, and we do lots of cooking.
Besides the children arriving,last week was a significant milestone for me as I had my first mammogram after my treatment. Thankfully everything was fine. I hope as time goes on it will get easier, but it was stressful until I got my results. I only had to wait a half hour as I had an immediate follow up appointment with my radiation oncologist.
This week I will participate in a study at UCSF about the effects of chemotherapy in causing neuropathy, which is tingling or numbness in the hands and feet that is a common problem after taking certain chemo drugs. There are 750 participants in the study. I was lucky in this regard as I did not get this side effect, and they were very interested in having me participate. I had to fill out an extensive questionnaire, they will take blood, and put me through some exercises and tests. It will take around three hours.
This summer is especially sweet for Jeff and I, and we are filled with gratitude, not only to have all of our children and grandchildren close but to treasure that I am doing so well.
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