Meeting My Great-Granddaughter Hadassah 12/07

TRIP TO ISRAEL TO MEET HADASSAH 12/07

Sometimes it seems as if my bags don't even have time to air out between trips to Israel!

I'd scheduled this one to coincide with the birth of my first great-grandchild, due anytime from November 29th on. Both my granddaughter Shoshana's mother and mother-in-law tended to "late" births, so I figured that December 5th would be a good bet, but the young couple were in a hurry to become parents, and the 29th it was. Still, that gave me time to pick up a few pink items for Hadassah, as the new arrival was named – everything I'd bought before that was gender-free.

I left in a snowstorm, but the hour's delay for de-icing was made up en route thanks to the storm's tailwind (it's an ill wind that bodes no good at all, isn't it?), and arrived bright and early Thursday morning, only to get on an airport van that wandered all over Jerusalem before finally depositing me in Har Nof.

Then it was off to the hospital (Hadassah had turned a bit yellow after coming home so needed a short spell under the lights) for my first chance to cuddle with the first of the next generation. Tiredness and the thought of the unpacking yet to come vanished as I held her and held her and held her sleeping in my arms.

By the next day Hadassah was home, or rather, as the custom seems to be, ensconced at my daughter's house with her parents, I was unpacked, and the fun began in earnest, with her new aunt and uncles vying for turns holding her and my very sensible daughter Sharon turning into almost a parody of a grandmother, instantly! By the end of my trip she, who always hated shopping, kept returning again and again to a little hooded coat (just what a newborn needs, of course) until at last she bought it, not because it was useful (it probably will be), but because it was cute. Even Shoshana was amazed at the almost-instant change!

As usual with these "event" trips, days and dates got all jumbled in my head, but there are always highlights:

…Riding down to the Wall with Nechama, who'd generously relinquished her room to the new family for a month, and wandering all over the Old City while I (who taught Sharon to hate shopping, after all) managed to pick up all my must-buy gifts in an hour.

…Yet another shopping trip with Nechama (who knows where she got that shopping gene from?) to pick out a new winter coat, her belated birthday present.

…Taking the "middle boys" bowling, where we were assigned an alley with bumpers where the gutters ought to be. Great for the ego, and I actually won, though it cost me a fingernail! Not bad, considering I hadn't bowled in about 30 years.

…Standing at the stove and frying latkes, and being told they were the best ever. They certainly all disappeared!

...Sharon and I and the younger boys spending a day in a very low-key sort of amusement park -- there are lots of pictures of this one. Despite a lunch left at home (Sharon was able to pick up lots of goodies at the nearest town), the boys had lots of fun on a sort of sled train (just look at the pictures to see), bouncing around, and riding electric cars and motorcycles. BD turned out to be a natural driver!

…Lunching with Dovy's two grandmothers, both of whom are resident in Jerusalem, and discovering that despite our very different sets of beliefs in some areas, we had so very much in common.

…Another lunch, this time with my piffle friend Sarah, who kindly picked me up at Sharon's, dutifully admired the baby, drove me to the Malka Mall, where we had a great lunch, talking books and people we both knew on line and politics and religion in Israel and a whole lot more, and then thoughtfully deposited me outside Sharon's door just before the rains came.

…Meeting again so many of the people I'd seen before at various happy times at the Kiddush (a sort of nibbles-and-desserts reception following Sabbath services) in honor of Hadassah's birth.

…Having a long, long talk with Sharon's – and my – friend, Liba, an honorary aunt and now great-aunt to the family, and feeling that age is no barrier to friendship.

…Watching – and feeling, when I held her for very long – Hadassah visibly grow and seeing her develop. It's amazing how quickly they do learn to look, to study the world around them, to recognize voices, to react to what goes on around them.


Somehow the week and a couple of days vanished in what seemed like the twinkling of an eye, and it was time for the airport and the flight home. It seemed fitting that I was lucky enough to sit next to someone who spoke English, a young South African who was studying in Jerusalem but flying to Des Moines for his wedding. His grandmother lives in Kansas, and I suppose in a year or so she, too, will be flying to Jerusalem to meet a new great-grandchild.

Pictures are on Picasa , under Israel December 2007.