Home is Where Your Mom Is
Today I was looking for a wedding present for somebody very dear to my heart, JewishMom’s social-media coordinator, Chana Ximena Orozco, who is b”H getting married on Wednesday to a wonderful young Israeli man named Avishai. You might remember Chana Ximena from an interview I did with her this past summer about her incredible journey from being a Mexican soap opera star to an Orthodox Jew living in Israel.
While at the store, looking for Chana Ximena’s present, I noticed a glass sign that read “Home is Where Your Mom Is” and found myself struck by a flurry of varied thoughts.
I was reminded how, many years ago, when I asked an Israeli how to say “homesick” in Hebrew, she thought for a moment and then told me that homesick in Hebrew is “מתגעגע לאמא.” Literally “he misses his mother.”
And I wondered if my kids feel that way about me. That home is where their mom is. Which of my kids feels it more? And which (heart pinch, self-kick) feels it less?
And I thought of Chana Ximena, whose mother died when she was a teenager.
And I thought of myself. I no longer have a mom either, but I am a mom. So I guess my home is where I am.
And I thought, tears popping unexpectedly into the corners of my eyes, of the millions of Ukrainian children. Hungry. Cold. Scared. So many refugees running for their lives. So many children whose homes, ornamental rugs on the walls, fragrant with potatoes and cabbage, from one day to the next, fleeing for their lives, hundreds of miles away from home or even across a border in a strange new land.
In several photos, amidst the wreckage and soldiers, I’ve been struck by the sight of babies in snowsuits with a fur trim, held firm in their mothers’ arms. And looking at that sign “Home is Where Your Mom Is,” I hoped that until those children are able to return safely home (please Hashem, may it be soon!) that those scared children will manage to find home in their mothers’ arms.
Thank you for posting this.
You put into words my exact thoughts.
I’ve been so struck by those photos too, and the pictures of the Ukrainian children just make me cry.
Home is where your mom is- may the moms have strength and courage, and may God send peace soon so they can all return home.
amen!