“Que Sera, Sera…The Future’s Not Ours To See”

Today, in the Teachers Room a fellow teacher asked me the meaning of “Que Sera, Sera." I told him and then mentioned that I had used it in one of my articles. I then looked for it on the internet to show him and realized that it must have been one of the "musings" I had written pre-blog. Here it is:

Musings #9
January 1, 2003

“Que Sera, Sera…
The Future’s Not Ours To See”

Last week, after my swim, while I was getting dressed in the ladies’ locker room, refrains from an old song drifted through a shower curtain. In a heavy Israeli accent:
“Que sera, sera,
Whatever will be will be,
The future’s not ours to see,
Que sera, sera,
Lalala, lalalala……”

Suddenly she noticed me, “You’re American; you must know all the words.”

And there we were in the ladies’ locker room of the swimming pool in Neve Yaakov, Jerusalem.
“When I was just a little girl,
I asked my mother what lies ahead…
…Will there be rainbows day after day,
Here’s what my mother said:

Que sera, sera,
Whatever will be will be,
The future’s not
ours to see,
Que sera, sera…”

Just a few days later…
At three in the morning I finally walked through the doorway into my house after Noam’s funeral. Thousands of people spent their Saturday night accompanying Noam (HaYa”D) to his grave. The Hebrew word for funeral means “escort.” One goes to a funeral to escort, or accompany the dead person to his grave. When Noam’s father spoke, he addressed himself to Noam, stressing how many people had come from all over. Close family, distant relatives, friends, neighbors and more.

Noam, the sweet, fair-haired, gentle boy, born and raised in Shiloh, used his last seconds of life to save dozens of others. He rushed to the door connecting the kitchen to the dining hall, locked it and threw away the key. He was later found dead, with his eyes open, knowing that he had given them those few crucial minutes to escape from the Arab terrorists, who murdered him and the three others on kitchen duty.

When I was just a little boy
I asked my mother what will I be
Will I be handsome?
Will I be brave?
Will I live to marry?