I stand with Israel

I'm sure all of you are aware of the horrific and devastating attacks in Israel over the weekend. What you may not know is that my sister has been living in Israel since 1990. She has four children, ages 21-30, all living in Israel, and teaches English as a foreign language in grades 7-12. She was on the last day of a vacation in the UK when the war broke out, and after a very harrowing three days (most international carriers have suspended service to Tel Aviv), she finally made it home today. I can't even imagine how exhausting and stressful it's been for her under these conditions. Naturally I'm very relieved that she's home at last!

Meanwhile one of my nieces has been called up for reserve duty in the Israeli army. I'm hoping that my nephew (who just finished his army service a few months ago) won't be called up, but it's possible.

The area where my sister and her kids live is nowhere near Gaza or Ashkelon or the Kfar Aza kibbutz where the attacks and other atrocities took place, so with luck they should be relatively safe. <crossing fingers>

Like so many others around the world, I'm heartbroken, appalled, and furious. And the more details we learn, the angrier I become at the terrorists who perpetrated all of this. Who would have thought that a horrible tragedy like this could ever happen in Israel?!?? I certainly didn't.

So, what does this have to do with OUTLANDER? Normally when I'm dealing with traumatic events, I turn to the OUTLANDER books, for solace, but also because the resilience of Diana Gabaldon's characters is one of the things I admire most about them. Diana's characters -- all of them -- are adept at "rolling with the punches", dealing with whatever life throws at them. Even in the face of traumatic and life-altering events (Wentworth, or Roger's hanging, to take just two examples), they never give up. Eventually, with time, with the help of friends and loved ones, they pull themselves together and move on with their lives.

But how do you deal with a tragedy on the scale of what the people of Israel are going through right now? Over a thousand Israelis killed in just a couple of days (many in horrific ways that I won't go into here), thousands wounded, many others taken hostage. All of that, in a small country with a population of only 9.2 million people. It's unimaginable. Our brains just can't take it all in. How do you recover, come to terms with what's happened?

I have no answers. I don't think anybody does. It's going to take time to process what's happened. For now, all we can do is try to help, in whatever way we can. If you can, please make a donation to Magen David Adom (the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross) or some similar organization that is assisting in the recovery.

But for now, I wanted to say publicly, echoing so many others around the world:

I STAND WITH ISRAEL!!

Please note: I'm not interested in a political discussion. If you want to discuss the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in general, the causes of the war, what this might mean for Netanyahu's government, or other political ramifications of the current situation, please do it elsewhere. Thank you.