By Karen Eh Skinazi

Copyright thejc

This month, my 15-year-old son began the same ritual I began every September through my teenage years: the countdown. It was a countdown until summer, until I was boarding a big yellow bus again that would transport me to the magic of sleepaway camp, where instead of long days of classes, homework, parents breathing down my neck, and piano lessons, there was water skiing, s’mores, sailing, and evening socials replete with awkward slow-dancing to Highway to Heaven. It took a while to convince my husband that we should send our kids to a Canadian sleepaway camp. He also went to sleepaway camp in Canada, but perhaps because he went to a Bnei Akiva camp as opposed to my more secular B’nai Brith camp – the way he describes it, all they did was swim in the lake and pray – his memories are less fond than mine. But I finally got my wish. Right away, two out of three loved it (the oldest managed to fall down the stairs at school a hot minute before the summer and went to camp in a cast). What’s not to love? They were trading in exams and essays for wake surfing, quad biking and jumping off giant inflatables! I was also pleased to have them in a Jewish environment; living in Birmingham, I can count the number of Jewish kids the same ages as my sons on one hand. At their camp, they didn’t spend all day praying, but they did have lovely Friday night services, and every year the camp hosts a group of Israelis who have lost family members to terrorism. This year they also hosted an event that I was mad jealous about (why weren’t parents invited?): Eden Golan, Noa Kirel, Stéphane Legar, and Shahar Saul performed a concert for them. The implicit end of her sentence, to channel my kids’ favourite Britishismm, was ‘but CBA’. She couldn’t be arsed While I no longer get to share the ritual of the countdown until summer, I did, for a while, feel that by sending my kids to camp near the place where I grew up, I could look forward to an annual reunion. After each school year ended in England, I would fly to Canada to drop off my son and run into people I had known in a completely different and distant lifetime. In 2019 and again, post-Covid, in 2022, I saw scores of old friends and bunkmates and heard endless: “Karen? Karen Skinazi?” as if I had long ago disappeared from the planet. In 2023, I hadn’t disappeared from the planet, but I had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. That year felt different. Word gets around, even if you left a place 30 years previous. Several people squeezed my hand, asking “How are you?” – not like the bubbly “Karen Skinazi? How are you??” – but sombre, like I might have been at death’s door in that very moment. Karen was diagnosed with breat cancer in 2023[Missing Credit] That summer, a familiar woman approached me. She had been a dear friend in high school and beyond. She had been a bridesmaid at my wedding. A mutual friend had asked if she could inform this former friend of my condition and I had consented. “I heard the news,” the woman said after we hugged hello. I nodded because of course I knew she knew. Then she added: “I was going to text you.” The sentence ended there. It was not: “I was going to text you but then there was an earthquake and I lost my phone through a crack in the earth’s crust and so did every other person who has your contact info.” Nor was it: “I was going to text you but I didn’t know what to say.” I would be OK with that. The implicit end of her sentence, to channel my kids’ favourite Britishism, was “but CBA”. She couldn’t be arsed. I told her not to worry (what else could I say?), and we took an ussie to send to our mutual friend. Still, the comment sat with me, and when my husband offered to do the camp drop-off last summer, I let him. And this summer when I went to take my youngest son – only one still goes now – I was surrounded by parents of much younger children. There was no one I knew. I hate to be one of those people who shouts about what you should and shouldn’t say to people with cancer. There is not one right thing to say. But actually, I guess there are wrong things. In any case, when the new school year began without my summer reunion, I didn’t mind.