Entries 103
Page 4 of 5
Shabbat rishon
He was born early on a Friday. That night we ordered grape juice and a dinner roll with my hospital meal to say kiddush and motzi over. Our voices faltered as we sang Shalom Aleichem, our son in ...
He's here
Our son arrived early Friday morning. They warned us he might not cry at first, but he came out wailing. I have never felt so relieved. I left work a couple of hours early on Wednesday afternoon....
To my unborn son
Tomorrow is your due date. The darkest day of the year. How much light you have already brought into our lives. Keep growing. Be healthy. Come to us safely. There are so many people here ready to...
Still afraid
I’m still fucked up. Our friends had a baby yesterday. A son, who we were all convinced would be a daughter. Another new life to shepherd into our little community. Why do I feel anything other t...
blueberry pancakes
This morning I read on the couch as David made french toast, singing a lively tune to “Oseh Shalom.” The house smelled of butter and eggs and cardamon and I found myself with tears in my eyes. W...
a new memory
I couldn’t watch. I felt myself grabbing desperately at the folds of my dress, more sure with every silent second that it would be bad news again. “I want to show you something. There’s the heart...
To the little heart beating within me
Keep growing. Be healthy.
Schrödinger's uterus
Every pregnancy is different. Knowing earlier won’t make a loss any less painful. I am grateful to have made it this far, no matter what comes next. The internet doesn’t have answers. These are t...
Anani bamerchav Yah
When David asked me to marry him, my first reaction was, well, confusion. “What?” was my initial response to “Will you marry me?” This, despite the fact that we had been talking about it for mont...
To my brother
You are the sunshine of my life.
weil ich erfahren habe
Everyone talks about “when” but I know only “if” now.
Womanhood
I have vague, early memories of pink and purple clothing, of big bows, of stick-on earrings. Was this actual preference or merely the influence of my mother? I don’t know, but it quickly gave way...
A Shabbos walk with friends
On Shabbos afternoon, we take a somewhat impromptu walk through the neighborhood to the high school with the parking lot that towers over the neighborhood, offering views all the way down to the ...
Apropos of nothing
As our friends continue to celebrate life’s joyous milestones, I remember the little things that marked our own: We built our own chuppah. I remember lugging it from our apartment to the park ac...
Terrible, thanks for asking
I’m still not really coping. I’m so afraid that we won’t be able to have children. And the thing is, you don’t ever really know until it works out or you give up. Sometimes it feels easier to con...
Pink
I started having tailbone pain last week, the same type of pain that I had when I was pregnant. Then I kept waking up in the middle of the night, also not unlike the insomnia I experienced when I...
Fear
There are two types of fear: the fear of what may come and the fear that it will come again. These are very distinct things. One is vague, discomforting. The other is nearly unbearable, and beget...
Who I am
This stoicism isn’t toughness or strength. It’s just self preservation.
Unacknowledged
I know only silent suffering. The father who left me. The proxy who chased after me, fists raised in rage as I cowered in the corner. The mother who belittled, who mocked, who was, fundamentally,...
I been working hard, I been searching for God
I flew down to Dallas the first weekend of August. It was my baby brother’s birthday and my sister’s last weekend at home before heading off to her freshman year of college. I took the three of t...
twenty eight
The very first thing I wrote in my journal about David, half a lifetime ago: “And nothing really happened anyways. But I still feel special.” And that same year, the very first thing I wrote ab...
A fleeting dream
I will never be the same person. As I awake every morning, almost always before the alarm, it’s already in my head. And I lay there, every single day, consumed by thoughts of what happened and wh...
Despondent
I ended up having to have a D&C. When they told me, I nearly lost it. Even this, miscarrying what would have been our first child, I can’t do right? It sounds strange to say, but it was actua...
b'reishit
As we enter the fourth day of the new year, I suppose it’s only fitting that I start this story in the beginning. Sometime around November, we decided we were ready to start trying to have kids. ...
The day my city was made for
The Fourth of July is when this city really comes to life, revealing a soul typically hidden behind an uptight, forcefully ambitious facade. It’s a common misconception that fireworks are legal h...
