Far Away

My aunt is 84. She lives in Israel (where she moved from Germany in 1935--you do the math, and yes, it's as interesting a story as the math suggests). My uncle, my cousins, my cousins' kids, and my cousins' grandchildren also live in Israel, except for one family in Vienna.

Last week my aunt fell on her face and broke her arm and four bones in her jaw. She was in surgery for four hours and in the hospital for a week. We just heard yesterday.

When I was little, my grandmother spent two months in Israel every winter, and when she was home in America she and my aunt wrote each other every week. We went to Israel every three years or so for a week or so. In between we mainly telephoned when babies were born, which for several years there was about once a year.

Now we have emails and faxes and we've long since stopped being stingy with the phone. We are all in regular contact, we email photos of new babies, and we hear each other's news quickly--that we didn't hear about the fall for a week is because my cousin flaked or his email was down or something, not because we are out of touch.

We don't go to Israel these days, though, for a lot of reasons I won't go into. I last was there in 1989 with M, my dad, and my sister's family. S and E have never been. I last saw my aunt two summers ago in Switzerland. I see one cousin fairly regularly, as he comes to America frequently enough for work, but I've only met three of the seven great-grandchildren, and now there's another one on the way.

Today the girls are making cards to send to my aunt. I wish I could give her a gentle pat and hold her hand--I think a big hug would probably be too much.

Sometimes long distance just isn't the same as being there.