John and Elisa found each other later in life. They were from very different worlds. John was a Christian living in rural Tennessee, Elisa was Jewish and from New Jersey. Together, they explored each other’s faith, traditions and found common ground on which to build a beautiful life together.
They dreamed of journeying to Israel, but that dream was shattered by John’s untimely death. Mired in grief and struggling with vision loss, Elisa felt drawn to Israel by a force almost as powerful as grief. Elisa joined a pilgrimage tour to honor John’s memory and arrived in Israel a week before the tour was scheduled to begin. She planned to use this time to reconnect with her Indian Jewish family that she had not seen in over twenty years. Two days after she arrived, the twelve-day war erupted. The airport would be closed indefinitely, and Elisa would shortly need an eye injection to preserve her failing vision. Although she spent the next two weeks in bomb shelters with family she barely knew, Elisa found a path through grief thanks to the enduring power of love, family, and faith.
This profound and moving memoir demonstrates that healing is possible anywhere, anytime, even in the middle of a war zone.
