"Amy, I'm gonna step out so you and your aba can talk alone. I'll be right outside the door if you need me," Avi says.
My dad stands beside me and strokes my back as we both look down at the sweetest woman I've ever known. "I came home from school when I was six and told her an eight-year-old named Ido had pushed me," he tells me. "Can you guess what she did?"
"Went to school and threatened Ido if he didn't leave you alone?"
"No."
"Called I do's mother and told her that her kid was a bully?"
"No. She told me to handle it myself. She said I'd have to deal with bullies all my life--so I might as well figure out how to deal with them at the age of six."
I try to picture my grandma as a young woman, strong and full of energy.
"Did you know she was in a war?" my dad asks me.
"What war?" I know all Israelis have to serve in the military. The country has been through their share of wars since they were recognized by the UN in 1948, but I can't imagine my grandmother wearing an army uniform or carrying a gun.
"She was in the Sinai War of '56. You should ask her about it. They wouldn't let women on the front lines back then, so she dressed as a boy."
"Whoa. I can't believe my grandmother was in a war.
I can't wait to tell Roxanne back at school, who brags that her great-grandmother was one of the first women pilots." Pilot, shmilot. My grandmother was on the front lines. I guess I'm not the only kick-ass warrior woman in the family. "So what happened with you and Ido? Did you tell him to stop pushing you?"
"Oh, I told him. Right after that, he pushed me again."
"What'dyoudo?"
"Well, the next day I came to school with a gift for Ido."
"Like a fist-in-your-face kind of gift?"
"No. Like a new basketball my aunt gave me after she visited the States."
Let me get this straight. "Ido pushed you, and you gave him a gift?"
"Since my mom wouldn't intervene, and there was no way I could fight a big kid two years older than me, I figured trying to be friends with him was my best option."
"So you became friends with the bully?"
He nods.
"That's a sellout. You shouldn't have to give the bully something. That's just wrong on so many levels."
"I had to sacrifice a little in order to get what I wanted. We ended up being friends."
I guess we all sacrifice at some time or another. I just hate having to do it so often.
"Aba, is she going to die?"
"Eventually."
"You know what I mean. Is this it? Is this the start of the end?"
"She had her final chemo treatment last week. They suspect her white blood cell count is low."
"But what if it's more than that?" I cry.
He puts his arm around me. "Let's not worry about that until the morning, when we know more. Let Avi take you back to the moshav."
"I don't want to leave Sofia," I say, watching the oxygen mask fog up when she exhales.
"I know. But you can't do anything for her tonight. You can come back as soon as you wake up in the morning. Now go."
I hug him tight, wondering how I could have ever been distant from my father. I'm so grateful God brought him back into my life. I don't know what I'd do without him, especially now, with my mom and Marc starting a new family.
I don't know if I'll fit in. "Will they still have time for me and a new baby? But one look at my dad and I know he'll never be out of my life again, no matter if I try to push him away or not. (Believe me, I've tried it. Especially when Avi was in town and my dad was grilling him, having the "Don't Do It" sex talk with both of us multiple times, and acting as an overprotective chaperone the entire time.)
After taking me for a quick dinner, Avi parks the car in front of my aunt and uncle's house on the moshav. It's on top of a big mountain overlooking the Kineret lake.
It's rustic and dusty and total farmland, but it feels like home.
Poor Avi had to listen to me cry and sniff and blow my nose every two seconds all the way from the hospital, although he didn't seem to mind. He held my hand the entire time (except when I was being gross and blowing my nose, and when we stopped for dinner). Seriously, just having him here with me gives me strength.
Avi lives a few houses down on the opposite side of the very narrow gravel road, but he doesn't just drop me off.
My cousin Osnat (pronounced O'snot -- and yes, it's a very popular Israeli name) is the first person to see me. She's sitting on the sofa, watching television with my aunt (Doda Yucky), my Uncle Chaim (I call him Uncle Chime, because I can't do that back-throat-noise Hebrew-pronunciation thing), and my little toddler cousin Matan (who is not naked, for once).
They all wrap me and Avi in big hugs. Even Osnat, and she's not the most warm and fuzzy person I've ever met--although we definitely get along way better now than we used to. I can tell she's been crying, too, because her eyes are all bloodshot.
"Amy, what happened to your chin? And your arms?" Doda Yucky looks at Avi accusingly.
He holds his hands up. "Don't look at me. She managed to do that all on her own."
"You beat yourself up?" Osnat says. "In the morning you'll have to tell us how you managed to do that."
I know she's just joking. Normally I'd have some witty-comeback, but I'm too upset and exhausted to think of one.