Last night, as I tucked you in,

safely for the night,

You asked me once again,

" Ema, why do they fight?"

"Is our shelter ready?,

Is it going to be Ok?"

"What are we going to do?

Where will we stay?"

What's going to happen?

Are we going to die?

Ema, please tell me,

Please tell me why!?"

I kissed your sweet face,

as you lay on your bed,

And tried to clear the worries

From your nine year old head.

I thought about the mother,

Far away in Iraq

Explaining to her child

About the danger of attack.

And as our countries prepare for war,

Getting ready for the fight,

It is with the mothers of the world,

With whom I unite.

Tonight as we hold our children

close to our heart,

Let us pray together,

that this war will never start,

Creating hubs are very therapeutic. Their creation forces you to slow down and think about what you really want to say.

I have so much I want to say.

When I wrote that poem, my girls were young. Not babies (didn't have a picture of them in bed at 9 and 6 years old), but young, impressionable children. Naive children who needed to be protected, who needed to feel safe. I also wanted them to grow up as compassionate and tolerant adults, with a depth of awareness of different cultures. I involved them in every part of my friends and flags, a peace project that I had launched in 2000.

We hosted guests from overseas, travelled to visit partner classes. When they were older they continued to be involved in projects of their own and participated as members of delegations that brought Jewish and Arab youth together with youth in Germany.

Now, the day I feared since Eden was born has come. My beautiful, 18 year old daughter is going into the army for two years, as all Israeli youth are expected to do. She is nervous, anxious, excited and suprisingly into it. As a Canadian, I feel left out, as I don't really understand all of this as I didn't go through it myself.

Eden and Ramy, my husband, spend hours talking about what will happen at each stage. What courses and training she should hope for and so on. She cheerfully signs her American friends facebook, telling them what she is going to do. They tell her about the colleges they are going to and the dorms they will be living in. Such different paths.

This is a very hard time for me as her mother. I guess finding hubpages was not a coincidence. Writing is therapeutic. Thank you hubpages.