The other week I found myself crying over the simple act of making a sandwich.

Omelette, cream cheese and tomato; normal enough.

And yet there I was in my PJs, sun streaming through the kitchen window early Sunday morning and I was just barely keeping it together.

Let me backtrack a bit.

For two and a half years, I’ve been making omelette sandwiches for our adopted lone soldier Raanan before he would return back to base. Whether he was leaving at 6 or 7 in the morning, I would set my alarm and be down in the kitchen preparing a warm breakfast for him to take on his commute.

A little love wrapped in aluminum foil.

Two and a half years. That’s a lot of omelette sandwiches. And a lot of love.

And when my best friend’s daughter Sophie became a lone soldier and would stay over, I would continue the tradition and send her off to base with a warm omelette sandwich and a hug.

Now here I was back in the kitchen in my normal Sunday routine. Yet this wasn’t my normal Sunday routine.

This sandwich was the first of many I would be making for my son Ezra for his commute to his base down near Eilat.

And it hit me hard standing there in the sunlit kitchen.

All these different emotions came rushing at me like a tidal wave. I was completely and utterly swept away by this milestone and I felt myself being pulled by its strong undertow.

My son.

My son is a soldier.

All it took was the simple act of making a sandwich and I was a hot pile of mess.

To make matters worse, I made the ghastly mistake of Googling Ezra’s unit and reading up on all the stuff they are supposed to be learning and responsible for in the Combat Engineering Corps (Handasa Kravit). You know how they say don’t look online for medical information. Well I would venture to elaborate that warning to include: Army moms, don’t ever Google the unit your kids are in. No good will ever come of it.

And so, as my mind went to its crazy place, I reached out to my battalion of lone soldiers that have become an extension of our family. I WhatsApped three of them that I had just bought a one-way ticket to Cuckooville and that I needed to be brought back. Like ASAP.

And they did. Each one of them. Explaining to me calmly and gently (read sanely) what Ezra was going through for his first 10 days and reassuring me that he was in fact ok.

God bless them for that.

But the real peace comes from hearing Ezra’s voice when he calls us nightly for a couple of minutes to recap his day. I rejoice in hearing how serious he takes his learning and responsibilities and how he pushes himself when tasks are incredibly challenging both physically and mentally. I love hearing him joking around with the other guys and sounding more Israeli than I ever will. I am in awe of the respect and deference he affords his mifakdim (commanders) and how he is quickly adapting to his new army life. But mostly, in truth, I rejoice in just hearing the sound of his voice and his optimistic attitude. Those are some of my best minutes of my day.

I also know there will be days or weeks when he is in shetach (wilderness) when he won’t have his phone and I’ll have to count down the days until I can next speak with him. Or days when he may call feeling shattered or beaten down with exhaustion, it will be my job to cheer him on with words of love and encouragement.

I know that like other parts of life, I will fall into more of a normal routine or my new, not-so-normal normal, as I call it. And I know there will be times when I’ll have to call on my family, friends and lone soldier “therapists” to cheer me on. But I also know that my son is connected now to Eretz Yisrael in a way that most of us have only read about in history books or seen in movies. And I know now that I am but a small link on a long, expansive chain of mothers whose soldier children have put themselves a distant second, and the future of our people first.

These moms are my new tribe and crazy as it sounds I love them all.

When I light Shabbat candles I have recently added in the prayer for the protection of our soldiers. I pray for the safety of my Ezra and Raanan and Sophie and for all of the other Ezras, Raanans and Sophies within the IDF just with other names.

I pray that every soldier should go in peace and return home in peace.

And in the meantime, I’ll continue expressing my love wrapped tightly in aluminum foil.

By Esti Rosen Snukal

Esti Rosen Snukal made aliyah from Teaneck, New Jersey, with her husband and four sons in July 2012. Esti is the adopted mom to a Highland Park lone soldier and is an active volunteer at The Lone Soldier Center in Jerusalem. Esti documents much of her aliyah journey on her Facebook page and can be reached at [email protected].