Quiet Fridays

It’s a quiet Friday. We went to a wedding last night and watched a young couple join their futures amid music and song and dancing. It was lovely and bright. We got home, I played around a bit on the computer and went to bed…only to be awakened at 4:00 in the night…no, not by Elie, but by our youngest daughter.

Her stomach was hurting horribly, she was frightened enough to find it hard to breathe and kept crying that she just couldn’t stand it any more. I was terrified it was her appendix; unsure beyond comfort, what I could really do for her. I wondered it I should take her to the hospital and finally settled on calling my brother-in-law in America in the middle of the night. He’s always been an island of calm and information and the more questions he asked, the more I realized that this was really most likely a stomach virus…severe…painful…but nothing more serious.

Best of all, for our young daughter, it met her criteria that she wanted someone to check her. It was interesting how she asked for Elie or her middle brother, somehow knowing that I wasn’t completely convinced it was just a stomach virus.

Finally, after what seemed like endless hours, it calmed down and she slept. I slept at the foot of her bed and in the morning, her middle brother came to check on her. By then, she was fine (I was a mess). And then the sweetest of offerings.

It was Friday; Shabbat was coming and I needed to get things done. She wanted me to stay close. There was really no reason other than the lingering worry that it would suddenly come back. My middle son brought her his movies to watch on a small laptop computer and offered to carry her to the living room couch. She was actually quite well and without pain and could easily walk.

It was a sweet gesture, the offer. She decided to stay in her room and watched the movies on the computer. In all the hassle, I didn’t get a chance to call Elie and I guess he was too busy as well.

I finally only called him on Sunday to hear his voice and see how he is doing. He’s fine, looking forward to coming home next weekend. She’s fine, back to school.