Where has my blood gone ?

Ghazal my Dear, Two month ago, in September 2012 Israel seemed to be the most relaxed and calm country one could imagine. Except for very rare security checks at the entrances of large shopping malls, concert halls or the Jad Vashem museum, there were hardly any signs of the immanent threat of violent attacks. As travelers we were more concerned about the possible failure of the air-conditioning in our flat, or about the trouble to release our car from the car-park that was suddenly locked on Sabbath. In an attempt to dissociate myself as far as possible from the tourists (many of whom visit Israel for its christian heir or because they come on a cruise with a one-day break in Haifa) I was lurking around Lev Hamifratz Shopping Mall. There, a memorial plate told that during construction of the mall in 1991 it had been hit by a scud missile launched by the lunatic Saddam Hussein. Some years later an attempted car bombing attack by the Libanese Hisbollah was prevented by police that sapped the vehicle on the car-park outside the building. This suddenly reminded me of an ever-present, albeit latent danger for life or injury in Israel, and this might to a certain degree prompted me to decline to the invitation by the Magen David Adom (the Israeli equivalent to the Red Cross) to donate blood right there at the shopping mall. 

 

I never donated blood before, except when it was recommended before a surgery in hospital. When I laid down on this rubber-covered bed I had some time to talk to the doctor and the nurse about the most likely occasion when my blood (of course processed and perhaps mixed with a lot of Israeli blood to dilute out the Goi-factors) was used for transfusion. Anything could happen in Israel like anywhere else: car accidents, surgical operations with sudden complications, caesarian sections. The prospect of a military conflict was rather unlikely, two month ago.

Now, after Israel started its counter-attack to protect its people from the Gaza-launched rockets, it appears that victims of air-strikes, bombs or rockets blowing living-houses will be more likely to be in need of blood-transfusions. If my blood finds a way out of the deep-freeze storage into the circulation system of a patient, it could be a civilian who's house in Ashkelon or Ofakim or even in the suburbs of Tel Aviv were hit by Hamas rockets. It could be an IDF soldier who is about to enter Gaza in an attempt to neutralize the terrorists of Hamas. But most likely, it will be an innocent person living in Gaza, who has been misused by the terrorists as a living shield, who finally is be the most vulnerable and least cared-for victim. Israels IDF recently circulated a Twitter news promising that it will open the Gaza check points to permit delivery of emergency medical goods, maybe including my blood.

When I donated blood in September in Haifa, I had to fill in the form below, and of course without understand much hebrew I simply followed the suggestions of the Magen David Adom nurse and clicked any field she recommended to me. I did not asked her, if any of these fields to fill in were refering to the intended usage of my blood. Did it possibly exluded its use during military operations ? Or for certain minorities ? Or could it even be that non-kosher blood from a Goi like me would only be used to rescue non-Jewish victims ? Everything is possible, but I hope in the case of life emergency, people forget about race, nation, faith, and give the blood to those who need it most.

Deja vu

I'm wondering how everything would change, if I could really see you every day, like it was two years ago. If we could go out for a walk through Pompej every night, Or sit next to each other in every new movie that comes to the cinema. If we could climb up to the TV tower not only once, but do it every sunny day, and watch the crazy world beneath our feets. Would you still like the black bracelet, if we would go to the little jewelery store in Vietri once every week ? And would the bone-fire on the riverbank still warm our skin and my soul, if we would have it every fullmoon night, and not only once in August 2010 ? And if IKEA would see us as frequent customers, not just once as passers by, would I still be this attentive student of the Swedish language there ? And if we would drive to Carefours supermarket every day after sunset, would the elder Italian lady behind the counter ask us again and again, what we have to do with each other, this enchanting young girl and the elder man? This meteor that stood still for 3 seconds when we saw it, it would not follow the same track again, even if we would go out to observe the Perseides each year. The magic of the moments wont come again, even if we try to repeat the same set-up, hoping that we will experience again what was wunderful before, we will find that the world cannot be copied and pasted. The moments with you that turned my life into a rush, and filled the air with the scent of eternity, wont come again. But there will be countless more occasions filled with magic and excitement. But because these moments will be rare, my Dear, painfully separated by long periods of separation, they will always give us this sensation of a never before and never again.

Pompeji - You only live twice

Hi Michael, Our walk through the ruins of Pompej during the Vietri-sul-Mare meeting, that finally had us loosing our way at night, and "being rescued" by this old Italian gentleman who gave us this very special guided tour with a torch-lamp, let me speculate if this glamourous roman population that lived there untill the year 79 ever had a second life after they all died and their house were buried in lava and ashes from the Vesuv volcano.

  

I found this video from the James Bond 007 film "You Only Live Twice", and therein are scenes showing the flood of lava. Maybe we, two visitors of the 21st century on their lonely walk through Pompeji, exactly 1933 years after the big catastrophy, were reincarnations of two of the victims of the eruption.