The Best Seat in the House

Few events have the power to transform dignified, kind mothers and grandmothers into a tightly packed, elbow-dodging, phone-wielding, camera-ready audience quite like a preschool end-of-year performance.

I arrived early, but the other mothers and grandmothers had clearly mastered the system - they had arrived even earlier. I found myself in the last row.

The classroom had been divided neatly in two: one half for the “stage,” and one half for the audience forty mothers and grandmothers packed into a space that felt designed for about twelve people and a coat rack. I settled into my seat and quickly realized I would be spending the next hour in intimate relationship with the backs of heads, raised smartphones, and the occasional strategic elbow.

Everyone was trying to be polite (I mean, they’re each going to meet eventually at the supermarket and the fruit store). Everyone was also, very clearly, trying to see her own child. The result was a kind of gentle chaos - subtle shifting, standing, re-standing, leaning, and the occasional quiet gymnastics routine to attain the perfect angle.

The teacher, meanwhile, was performing what can only be described as a one-woman miracle. She moved through the “stage” half of the room at lightning speed - straightening braids, adjusting bright yellow hats, tying neckerchiefs, placing props, repositioning small chairs, and quietly recalibrating entire human beings before sending them back into formation.

It was impossible not to watch her in awe. She looked less like a preschool teacher and more like the stage manager of a Broadway production - except the cast members were five years old and occasionally distracted by their own shoelaces.

The music would begin, and suddenly the girls would transform: sailors, picnickers, cheerful preschoolers performing carefully rehearsed hand motions. Well… most of them. A few were clearly improvising their own artistic interpretations, while others seemed mainly interested in locating their families in the audience and confirming their existence.

And then, just as everyone began to relax into the performance, there would be a pause. A long one. The kind of pause during which every adult in the room tried very hard not to calculate how many minutes of costume change had just passed, while simultaneously pretending not to notice that everyone else was doing exactly that.

And still, nobody sat down. Because of course, the moment you sit, that’s when your child will appear.

And just when I thought I might finally catch a clear view, the mothers in front of me would rise even higher on their toes, because the children were taking their place.

Every.
Single.
Time.

At one point, I found myself peering through the crook of someone’s elbow to catch a glimpse of my granddaughter. The arm was positioned so perfectly it practically framed her face, like an accidental art installation titled “Child, Partially Visible Through Elbow.”

I even took a photo of it. Proof that I had, in fact, witnessed something - just not necessarily in the way the performance was intended.

And then … Disaster struck.

DISASTER

Not the kind of disaster you expect. No falling off the stage. No forgotten choreography. Something far more serious in a room full of mothers trying to maintain composure.

A little girl in the back row sneezed.

It was not a small sneeze. It was the kind of sneeze that carries across a classroom and immediately changes the emotional weather in the room.

Her hands flew up to her face. The singing continued, but she froze - completely still, trying to contain the situation while also remembering she was, technically, supposed to be performing.

For a split second, nobody moved.

Forty mothers and grandmothers sat in collective suspended animation, all thinking the same thing: Do we do something? Is someone handling this?

The teacher, of course, was still backstage, completely unaware that an emergency had just occurred in full view of the audience.

And then - almost as one unified organism - the mothers opened their bags. Hands rummaged. Tissues appeared as if summoned. A brief moment of silent coordination, the kind that doesn’t need planning but somehow always works.

And then a grandmother rose.

She made her way through the chairs, stepped into the performance space without hesitation, and gently took charge. One tissue. One small intervention. A nose blown. A situation resolved.

And just like that, everything continued with the little girl joining the singing, and the audience exhaling in collective relief. Because truly - it could have been anyone’s child.

And in that moment, it felt like everyone understood: the performance had not been disrupted at all. It had simply paused for something more important.

THE FINALE

Then came the grand finale.

With great pomp and circumstance, two little girls - one of them, my granddaughter - rolled a giant red and white gift box into the center of the “stage.” The music softened. The audience leaned forward in unison. Even the elbows paused for a moment of suspense.

This was it. The big reveal. The culmination of weeks of rehearsal, costume changes, braids, hats, neckerchiefs, and carefully choreographed hand motions.

What would it be? Confetti? Treasure? Something magical?

The box opened.

And out came… a balloon. One single balloon.

For a moment there was silence, as if everyone was recalibrating their expectations. And then the room erupted into applause. Because, of course! In that moment, it felt entirely right. A balloon was exactly enough.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I had given up on seeing everything properly. I had stopped trying to navigate the forest of raised phones and shifting shoulders and simply accepted my new role as part of the audience infrastructure.

WILD WAVING

Every now and then, I stood up and waved wildly toward my granddaughter like a slightly unhinged air traffic controller guiding a very small plane toward landing.

And then she saw me. Her face lit up. She grinned.

That one grin cut straight through everything - the elbows, the phones, the chaos, the blocked view. It didn’t matter that I had barely seen the performance. I had seen her see me.

On the way home, I realized something very simple. I hadn’t really watched a performance. I had watched love in a crowded room. And somehow, that was more than enough.

Next Sunday, God willing, I’ll be back again - this time for my two-year-old granddaughter’s end-of-year performance.

I already know the rules.

I’ll arrive early. It won’t be early enough. I’ll find a seat. It won’t really be a seat. I’ll film things I can’t quite see. And I’ll wave like a maniac just to make sure she knows I’m there.

And I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Because these little classrooms are not really classrooms at all. They’re tiny theaters where the stars are very small… and the love is very big.

Hearts and Soles

For the first time in twenty years, the Dames of the Dance family stood inside one of its projects.

Some of the husbands came too.

Hopefully, the next time the dishes sit in the sink while their wives run off to dance, they'll skip the sigh. They've seen what it's all for.

Last Sunday, more than twenty dancers, choreographers, and supporters gathered at Merkaz Chossen, a therapy center dedicated to healing the emotional wounds of our chayalim and their families. We came to see the Five Senses Therapy Garden - a garden that our dancing helped build. We walked through it together, and I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. Which, considering we were standing in a garden, felt entirely appropriate.

Almost everyone, at some point, has felt the quiet frustration of wanting to make a difference but not knowing where to begin. The need is everywhere. The desire is genuine. But between the impulse and the action, there's a gap that can feel impossible to cross. Where do I start? What do I have to offer?

WHAT CAN I DO?

Dames of the Dance 1

I know that feeling well. Twenty years ago, at the age of 50, I walked into Judy Kizer's tap class as a complete beginner. Not a dancer. Not a choreographer. Just a woman who loved music and thought moving her feet to a beat counted as dancing. (Judy was very patient.)

And somewhere between the shuffles and the ball-changes, a thought took shape: if we love to dance this much, maybe our dancing could do some good in the world. It seemed almost too simple. But simple ideas, powered by heart and determination - and sensible shoes - have a way of surprising you.

Twenty years later, B"H, Dames of the Dance has raised 580,000 shekels for causes across Gush Etzion and beyond - food campaigns, trauma centers, youth at risk programs, lone soldiers, brides from Gush Katif, farms in need, children with special needs, senior citizens' programs, and now a garden dedicated to the healing of our chayalim and their families.

Five hundred and eighty thousand shekels. From a tap class and many other dance classes from Jerusalem, Bet Shemesh, Efrat and Kiryat Arba.

Most of us weren't professionals. We have simply been women of every age - beginners and veterans, young and not-so-young - who decided to take something we love and use it for good. Women who occasionally left the dishes in the sink. Women whose husbands occasionally sighed. Women who danced anyway.

DANCE AT EVERY STAGE

And here is my favorite part of the story: I am now 70 years old. My taps may be a little slower these days, but I am still out there on that stage, doing my very best to hang in there with the yungins. They are kind enough not to mention it.

Because this is what I have learned at every stage of my life - it is never too late to begin, and it is never too late to keep going.

At the Therapy Garden dedication ceremony, I tried to put it simply: Dames of the Dance has
never been just about dancing. It has always been about taking something we love and using it to help others. We do it with music. We do it with friendship. We do it with caring. We do it with our hearts.

And yes ... we do it with our soles.

The lesson of Dames is not "go take a dance class." The lesson is this: you already have what you need. A talent, a passion, a skill, a love - something that makes you come alive. The gap between wanting to help and actually helping is shorter than you think.

You just have to be willing to take the first step.

Even if that step is a tap.

GRADUATION EPILOGUE

 Life, it seems, has a sense of humor.

After writing about graduation tickets being rationed like wartime milk, and after graciously accepting my fate as a member of the Grandparent Standing-Room-Only Division, we received a phone call at 6:10 PM.

Extra tickets for the 7 PM graduation.

Not only did Sabba and I get to go, but we brought my sister and brother-in-law, as well.

We didn't sit together. That didn't matter. We were there.

We watched our granddaughter graduate from eighth grade. We watched the graduation show. Well, to be completely honest, I watched a two-hour eighth-grade show with the special superpower granted only to grandparents: the ability to feel nachas through absolutely anything.

My granddaughter wasn't on stage most of the time. She was an MC, and then backstage, moving scenery, helping the production run smoothly, making sure everything happened when and where it was supposed to happen.

The audience saw the show. I saw her.

And when it was over, she came out from backstage, smiling and happy. We took pictures. We hugged. We celebrated.

So perhaps the lesson is this:

Sometimes we don't get the ticket. And sometimes, just when we've made peace with not getting the ticket, four extra tickets appear. Either way, the joy is the same.

Mazal tov, sweetheart. What a privilege it is to watch you grow.

Savta’s Graduation

This year, five of my grandchildren are graduating. B"H. Mazel tov. Two from high school and three from elementary school.

Naturally, everyone is focused on the graduates. There will be ceremonies, speeches, photographs, hugs, and enough cake to feed a small country — assuming, of course, you made the guest list.

(A topic for another essay: graduation tickets are apparently rationed like milk during the war. Three tickets, five tickets, never quite enough to go around. And somehow it’s always the grandparents who quietly volunteer to sit this one out. Which is fair, really. We had our turn. We sat through our own children’s graduations, performances, and several questionable haircuts in between. Let the siblings have the seats. Let them be the ones who get to stare at their brother or sister crossing that stage and think, that’s going to be me someday. We’ll be home, holding down the fort and the apple chips, perfectly content.)

I’M GRADUATING TOO

But I feel like I’m graduating too.

The high schoolers are deep in conversations about careers, national service, learning — all very serious, very adult, very forward-looking. They are gazing into the future.

I, meanwhile, am gazing into the past. Not sadly. Just with a sort of stunned “wait, when did this happen?” squint.

These are the same children who once sat on my couch eating snacks and playing board games. The same children who begged for just one more story. The same children who considered an afternoon with Savta the single greatest entertainment option available to mankind. Now they have friends. Plans. Phones. Lives.

Apparently, I am no longer the center of the social universe. I would like to formally note that I was not consulted about this decision. I assume there was a meeting.

The elementary school graduates are not much better. They’ve entered that mysterious in-between age - practicing for high school the way understudies practice for a part they haven’t been cast in yet.

Suddenly they are very busy. Very cool. Very above it all.

Rummikub with Savta now loses to hanging out with friends. A kiss in public has become a diplomatic incident requiring advance written notice. And being “shmooshed” - once a privilege, like a royal title - has been quietly revoked, no explanation given.

The children are graduating from childhood. And I am graduating from being the grandmother of little children.

BECOMING SOMEONE NEW

At first this made me sad. Then I realized something: every stage of grandparenting requires us to become somebody new. (Nobody warns you about this. There should be a pamphlet.)

First we are grandparents of babies. Then of toddlers. Then come the playgrounds, the storybooks, the sleepovers, the game nights, and the truly heroic quantities of nosh.

And then, before we’re quite ready, the job changes.

Perhaps it means fewer board games and more coffee dates. Fewer bedtime stories and more real conversations. Fewer hugs in public, more texts that simply say, “Hi.”

(In their language, that’s a big deal. It means they paused, mid-conversation, while sitting on the steps with friends laughing at who knows what, to think of me for one second. That one second means more than they could possibly know.)

Well, I’m still figuring it out. But then again, so are they. Which is a comforting thought.

GROWING UP AT EVERY AGE

Maybe growing up isn’t something that only happens to children. Maybe grandparents have to keep growing too - finding new ways to love people who no longer fit in our laps, but who will always fit in our hearts.

The good news is that I still have a few little ones around who think the couch, the swing, and the park are their happy place. So, I haven't been entirely retired. 

I’ve simply been promoted to the next stage - a stage I didn’t apply for, but am apparently very qualified for, having already survived several stages with their parents.

Because really, what greater blessing is there than watching the children you love become exactly who they were always meant to be?  

I may miss the little hands, the bedtime stories, the days when visiting Savta was a special occasion. But I would not trade the joy of watching them grow - not even for one more uninterrupted hour of “Ticket to Ride”, and not even for a graduation ticket.

So mazal tov, my dear graduates. You are beginning a new chapter. And it seems Savta is too. We’ll learn this one together.

DONKEY EPILOGUE

 

Several readers have inquired about the donkey. Really. So, I'll tell you all.

The donkey came.

She is black and white, and her name is Storm.

For the past two days, my ten-year-old grandson has been waiting patiently for her to settle into her new home. Well, perhaps "patiently" is not quite the right word. He is checking on her approximately every three minutes.

Storm is taking her time getting used to her surroundings.

My grandson is counting the seconds until she will let him be her best friend. So, one of them is learning to trust. The other is learning to wait.

I think they are both going to be just fine.

The Witch of the World

For twenty-three years, I have been the most wonderful grandmother in the world. At least in my own mind.

I was the fun grandmother. The generous grandmother. The exciting grandmother. Every visit sparkled. Every outing was an adventure. Every grandchild was brilliant, adorable, hilarious, and perfect. Anything they wanted was granted. The sun rose and set on them.

Then came this past week.

Their parents went away, and suddenly I wasn't the visiting grandmother anymore. I was the one in charge. And let me tell you something. The transformation was not pretty.

A few months ago, I played the Witch of Ein Dor on stage in the musical David. This week I became the Witch of the World … and I wasn't acting.

"Don't hit him."
"Get back into bed."
"Finish your dinner."
"No, you cannot watch that."
"You took it. Eat it."

THE GRANOLA BAR AFFAIR

Take, for example, the Granola Bar Affair. "Can I have a granola bar?" "I don't think you'll like it." "Yes!! I will!" "If you take it, you have to eat it." "I want it!"

He took it. He tasted it. His face did something I have previously only seen on people taking medicine. "You took it. You eat it."

That granola bar sat on the table. For two days. A monument to poor decision-making. Every time he walked past it, I reminded him: when you choose something, you eat it.

By the second day, even I was tired of looking at it. "Okay," I said. "If you really don't like it, let's throw it out. But what's our lesson here?" "Don't take something you won't eat." "Exactly."

WHERE IS SUPER SAVTA?

Every night I went to sleep wondering what had happened to Super Savta. Where was the woman who bought ice pops and read stories and played endless games? Who was this cranky person who seemed to spend the entire day enforcing rules?

Then last night I figured it out.

For one week, I wasn't really a grandmother. I was a mother-substitute. The fun grandmother's job is simple: spoil, spoil, spoil. She gets to arrive with treats, hugs, and stories. The mother-substitute has a different job description:
Keep them safe.
Keep them fed.
Keep them clean.
Keep them healthy until their parents come home.

Somewhere during the week, I remembered that I used to be a pretty strict mother. Apparently those skills were not lost. They had simply been dormant for a few decades.

AND SHE’S BACK

Fortunately, on Shabbat with my grandchildren's help, I regained some of my Savta Mojo. We played. We lost. We won. We laughed. We read books. That felt much more familiar.

And then, just to keep things interesting, came the Donkey Saga.

I was hit with an unexpected "situation." My grandson had apparently bought a donkey - or he thought he bought a donkey or maybe he only bid on a donkey, nobody was entirely sure - and he had spent the whole day worrying that it would be delivered to the farm near his school while he wasn't there to greet it.

I could have said, "I am not chasing a possible donkey that we don’t even know is yours. Let's just go home." And honestly, that would have been a reasonable thing to say. But he was so nervous and so excited, I couldn't let him down.

So when we left my house and went back to his town today, before we even checked on his actual, currently-living-with-us dog, we drove to the farm to see if the donkey had arrived.

It hadn't. And we stood there, the two of us, looking at an empty patch of farm where a possible-donkey was not. He was disappointed, but at that moment, he knew I wanted to come through for him.

Still, I worried that the grandchildren would remember me as Strict Savta, the Witch of the World, the one who said:
"You cannot lick it and put it back."
"Do not leave your bed."
"I'm not telling you again."

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

So I decided to ask them a question. "What did you learn this week with Savta?" I expected silence. Instead, I got four answers.
"Only take what you will eat."
"Do not fight."
"Sleep is important."
"Clean up after yourself."

And just like that, I realized something. The children had not spent the week listening to my nagging. They had spent the week learning lessons. Simple lessons, perhaps. But not bad ones.

In fact, if every adult in the world followed those four rules, life would probably run much more smoothly.

So maybe Super Savta didn't disappear after all. Maybe she was simply wearing a disguise. For one week, she served as Acting Minister of Nutrition, Laundry, Conflict Resolution, and Bedtime Enforcement. And according to the children, who are as always brilliant, adorable, hilarious, and perfect, she did a pretty good job.

The truth is that love does not always look like ice cream and adventures. Sometimes it looks like, "No, you may not lick it and put it back."

And that counts too.

 

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

For centuries, mankind has searched for the Fountain of Youth.

Explorers braved stormy seas to find its source. Alchemists searched for magical formulas. Scientists studied ageless villagers in far-off mountains. Entire industries have been built around miraculous creams, vitamins, and exercise machines. Everyone searching for the same thing - a way to stay young.

Well, search no further.

We have uncovered the solution to the world's greatest mystery. My husband made his discovery on a preschool class minibus, and I made mine in a rocking chair with the quiet snore of my two-year-old grandbaby.

THE CLASS TRIP

My husband, "Sabba" to the kids, volunteered to be a parent on the preschool class trip. The night before the expedition, our kitchen table looked like a staging area for an African safari - a borrowed baseball cap, sunglasses, sunscreen, a water bottle, a bag lunch, and a handwritten list of instructions, which Sabba studied very, very carefully.

The next morning, he climbed aboard a preschool minibus wearing his white shirt, black cargo pants, and electric blue sneakers, and joined a crowd of squealing four-year-olds heading out for adventure. He high-fived our grandson, laughed at the antics of his friends, stopped a few potential fights, and had a grand time.

Sabba reported that the highlight of the trip was an animal show, which featured, among other things, a giant snake that was draped enthusiastically over the shrieking children like a very large, very slimy scarf. Sabba came home and said, simply: "There was a snake." I did not ask follow-up questions.

SWINGING AND ROCKING

I, on the other hand, picked up our two-year-old granddaughter from pre-preschool. When I arrived, a teeny pair of pink socks was hanging on her hat hook. They were not hers. She was certain they were. She insisted I put them on immediately, right there in the hallway. I did. Somewhere, a little girl is going home sockless. I hope her mother doesn't flip.

We went to the park, ate ices on a bench, and headed to the swings. She wouldn't accept any help climbing onto the swing. She is two. She slipped off four times. On the fifth try she made it, and looked at me with the triumphant expression of someone who has just conquered Everest. I cheered like she had.

Then we went back home to rest. I rocked her in my arms as her head nodded back and forth, and I hummed the melody I had hummed to her mother thirty years ago - a melody I thought I had forgotten - until she fell asleep in my lap.

And I realized something.

DISCOVERING THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

The Fountain of Youth isn't about looking young. It's about participating in the world of the young.

Grandparents who are involved with their grandchildren have a second chance at life. You think you're finished with preschool trips. Then suddenly you're on one. You think your days of discussing snacks, playgrounds, missing socks, and who gets to sit by the window are long behind you. Then grandchildren arrive and hand you a fresh ticket.

As Sabba called out to the kids on the jumping castles, "No pushing. One at a time!", he was suddenly forty-five again, calling out to our own boys as they over-enthusiastically bounded through the jumping castles of our kingdom long ago. The children ignored him completely, just as our boys did thirty years ago. Some things are eternal.

As my two-year-old gently snored in my arms, her warm breath on my cheek, I was in my thirties again, holding her mother - the same blonde curls gently bobbing, the same angelic look on her sleeping face.

THE TREASURE IN OUR REACH

The Fountain of Youth isn't a fairy tale or an impossible treasure. It is right there - as we eat lunch with messy four-year-olds, or try to push a toddler on a swing.

Access to the Fountain is granted when you take the hand of your grandchild, sit him on your lap for a story, or look up at the birds together. When you enter your grandchild's world, your knees may still be achy, but somehow time rewinds to those days, decades ago when you couldn't imagine that your little darlings would soon have little darlings of their own.

Perhaps that is why the explorers never found the Fountain of Youth. They were looking in the wrong places. They searched in hidden valleys and distant mountains. They should have looked in preschools, and beside sandboxes.

They should have looked on a class bus filled with four-year-olds wearing sun hats and carrying sticky juice boxes, or beside a rocking chair where a grandmother is humming an old lullaby to her grandchild. They should have looked for a man in electric blue sneakers refereeing a jumping castle, or a grandmother chasing her grandbaby around the park.

Because that is where time folds in on itself. That is where yesterday and today sit side by side. That is where a seventy-year-old man becomes a young father again for an afternoon, and a white-haired grandmother closes her eyes and remembers when her face was smooth and her hair was still blonde.

Looking into the eyes of our grandchildren, we realize that the years did not take away the sweetest parts of life. In fact, they may have made them even sweeter.

They simply brought them back wearing smaller shoes.