1.8.2022
Mum has 6 great grandchildren, all of whom live in israel. Yasmin and Liad have 2 kids - Alma, nearly 9, and Yonatan, who was born in April. Sunny and Amir have 4 kids, Mia, 12, twins Evie and Ben who are 10, and 4-year-old Eitan.
In August this year Sunny and family made the long haul to Oz specifically to visit mum.
Around that time, Covid was rampant at the facility so I had brought mum back home for a few weeks. I was happy that she would still be here when Sunny and the family arrived. It felt so much more natural for the kids to see mum in this environment where she had lived for the past five years.
The reunion was very moving, with laughter and tears. The last time the twins had seen mum was when they were 2 years old and Mia had last seen her five years ago when she was 7.
Mum feels a lot of love for ‘The Little Children of Israel’ as she calls the kids. It’s loaded, this title. I think it relates to mum’s life experiences, growing up in Poland with anti Semitism, and then the Holocaust. It’s about feeling proud that the Jews - her people - finally have a country, a homeland. She didn’t think like that straight after the war. In 1945 she wanted to live as far away as possible from Israel and the Jews (‘too much trouble, too many wars’).
Mum’s come a long way since. Today she is proud to call her great grandchildren ‘The Little Children of Israel’.
Evie giving nana Marysia her medication
Now Ben's turn
The first big hello
Ben & Marysia
Goodbye Nana Marysia
Evie, Ben & Mia
