The Wrong Number

As I picked up the receiver a mechanical voice emerged: “You have a collect call from ‘Bezek’ (phone company) client by the name of ‘_______’. Do you accept the charges?”. In the pause I heard a male voice, with a definitely Arab accent say what was probably “Achmad”.
Realizing that the fellow had made a mistake, I hung up, effectively refusing the charges, and turned to go back to my task at hand.
It took no more than three steps before an icy fear grasped my heart.

Twice I had read of women receiving phone calls from their husband’s terrorist kidnapers, informing them that their husbands were victims of kidnapping. In one case the husband survived, in the other the man was brutally murdered in cold blood.
The image of my son David, the soldier, flew to me, and the cold fear that he might be the next “Gilad Shalit” swept over me.
Then I suddenly brightened, and reaching for the phone, I dialed my son’s cellular phone. Within moments he answered, and after a casual “HI, how are you?”, I tried to invent a reason for calling at that (busy) time of day.
“Mom, what’s up?”, my perceptive fellow asked.
So I explained his paranoid mom’s fears, adding “You know, that’s just the way Moms are.....”
At least he is safe.
I wish Gilad Shalit was.

A Mom’s Worry

A young woman came to borrow a pregnancy book from me today. I was a bit surprised, as she is really only finishing her first month, and most women are a bit shy to share the news with non-family members so early. She was definitely nervous. She looked at Ricki, though, and didn’t get a “fright”. (Some pregnant women do….) This lady was concerned about eating right, not overdoing things, etc. I gave her a few pointers, like stay away from “natural” drugs as much as she would regular ones. Then I told her “I can see you are nervous. Know that worrying about your kids is part of the package. We all worry, we let our kids take normal risks (like class trips), and we learn to live with it.”
I remember the first time my oldest step-daughter sent HER oldest on a school trip. She called me up and said "now I understand...."