Saying Goodbye

For two and a half months, my life has been Israel. I’ve coached it’s children, befriended its people, gotten wrapped up in its politics, and lived its culture. And now, just like that, I’m back in London, waiting to fly out to the Philippines. In only a matter of 10 days, I’ve had to quickly shift gears and prepare myself for a new experience, a new culture, and a new set of challenges. But I would be remiss if I didn’t give Israel a proper send off— my one last chance to say goodbye.

Our last week and a half in Israel was a speeding car slowly losing control. It began with final sessions in our schools, which also coincided with Purim celebrations. Purim is a Jewish holiday commemorating the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, a Persian vizier. In it’s contemporary form, it looks similar to Halloween. As a result, kids in Jewish schools, dressed as various fairies and superheroes, were junked up on Purim, and they assaulted us with a newfound exuberance and energy. At some schools, Matt and I adorned costumes as we coached. In other schools, we scrapped the coaching and joined in on various school activities.

While kids were sad about our leaving, it was hard to grasp it all. Everything was happening so fast we didn’t have time to think. The day schools closed for Purim break, Matt and I hopped on a midnight bus to Eilat. We arrived at 6 in the morning and spent the day relaxing on the Red Sea. The following morning, promptly at 7:15, we were picked up to begin our journey to Petra. We reached the border at Jordan. We crossed. Two more hours in a small van and we reached Petra. After an amazing three hours at the site, we hopped back in the van and started back to Eilat. At midnight, we caught another night bus back to Akko. We arrived at 7:30 in the morning. Our tour guide, Danny, picked us up at 8 in the morning to start our two day excursion into the desert. We saw Masada, Mount Sodom, the Dead Sea, and Jesus’ baptismal site. When we arrived home Saturday afternoon, we took a quick nap before heading to a concert at the local bar. The next morning, our final day, we woke up early to say goodbye to another school before heading off to lunch with members of the UJIA.

You get the idea. Perpetual Motion.

Somewhere between the goodbyes at schools, the keeping true to Purim traditions which demand you drink alcohol (for the sake of cultural understanding I felt it was necessary to “try it out”), and the traveling, I became untethered from reality. I was drifting through these final days in a dream. But a moment brought me back.

Sunday afternoon, we were asked to come to Wietzman school for our final goodbye. I’ve always been pretty good at goodbyes. My penchant for shrouding true emotions under a guise of laughter and smiling leaves most people believing I couldn’t be happier to get away. It’s not until I’m safely confined within a car or plane, away from those I’ve grown close to, that I actually tap into what’s actually brewing beneath, and, for lack of better words…get sad. But when we walked into the school, I was confronted with scenes that got the better of me. Several kids we had gotten to know pretty well came up to us and handed us notes, with text reading “We love Arsenal, we love Matt and Jamie.” This was slightly different to the week before when these same kids spent a better part of 15 minutes calling Matt and me fat and debating among themselves who was truly fatter. We were no strangers to gifts either, as during Purim we received a multitude of random items, from pens, to cookies, to toy race cars, to a vanity mirror (quick aside: I’m not sure whether the girl who gave it to me just wanted to hop on the bandwagon and give me a gift or she was alluding to something more subtle… like maybe I should check myself in a mirror more often). But this was the first time we had received hand written notes. My heart swelled. Soon after our arrival, we were ushered into the upstairs sports hall. We entered. The entire school was there. All 150 something kids we had coached over the course of the last 3 months turned their heads and started yelling our names. Many jumped up to hug us. We waded through the crowd to the front where, after the children had settled down, the principle of the school gave a speech thanking us. After, we were asked to say a few words. Matt said something, but I couldn’t hear it over the pounding of my heart. When he passed me the mic, my eyes started to swell. Normally I would have tried to disarm the situation with a poorly timed joke, but this time all I could do was say thank you, as honest and simply as I could. When we finished the children ran up to give us one last hug. Many asked when we would be coming back next year to coach. Sadly, we won’t.

We returned to our apartment and spent the next few hours packing and tying up loose ends. Before we knew it, we were on the plane heading to London.

I’m trying to think of a joke to end the post, but again, all I can think of is thank you. Thank you to everyone who made our experience truly amazing. And thank you to all the kids for the immense amount of love you showed; it really is the best gift.

#Israël