Echos of Grief

Amidst personal and collective loss, I savor signs of life

Jun 06, 2025

This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.

two brown ducks floating on water — Photo by Javiera Argandoña on Unsplash

On November 9, 2005 (67 years, to the day, after Kristallnacht), my first husband died in a car accident on his commute home from work.

That evening, the kids and I came home late from my daughter’s skating practice to find an empty garage, a dark house, and the red light blinking on the answering machine. One message was from a neighbor, asking if we were okay. She said the police were looking for us. I called 9-1-1 and told them my name.

“Is my husband dead?” I asked. The dispatcher’s four words told us everything we needed to know.

“We’ll be right over,” he said.

The day before the crash, my husband’s deep voice and generous laugh filled the house. The day after, silence. Friends and family came to offer comfort, but his sound, his presence, was gone. The loss etched its way into every square inch of space and stretched out into the woods, hugging the deck beyond our back door.

There are dates, in life, that serve as markers—separating before from after. For my family, November 9 is one such day. For Jews all over the world, October 7 is another.

On October 6, I felt safe. One day later, the cruel grip of terror tightened around my throat. I found it hard to breathe. Sometimes, I still do.

When a person is thrown into an “after,” she knows it. She senses that life has changed, irrevocably, although she may not immediately be able to articulate how. I needed to ground myself in this new, uninvited limbo. So, hoping for strength, I looked back to the stories of my parents’ lives.

My dad, born into an Orthodox family in Cologne in 1922, experienced his share of hatred. At the age of nine, he was hit on the head with a blunt object by a man screaming “dirty Jew.” The blow caused a deep wound, requiring stitches. Still, my dad was one of the lucky ones. His family left Germany for Jerusalem in the mid-1930s. A staunch Zionist, Dad fought in Israel’s War of Independence and the Suez War. Somewhere along the way, he left the orthodoxy of his upbringing. I wonder what made him abandon his practices. Was there a moment that separated his “before” from his “after”?

My mom’s family immigrated from Morocco to Jerusalem before she was born. Her own mother had significant intellectual challenges—the result, according to family lore, of a childhood fall from a ladder. Mom’s father died when she was five, and her widowed, impoverished mother struggled to care for her. When Mom was eight years old, her mother made an unbearable decision: she dropped Mom off at an orphanage and left her there.

I often think of my parents and their difficult histories. I wish I could ask them more about the moments that changed their lives. While I am grateful that neither of them is alive to see this latest iteration of Jew-hate, I wonder what they would have made of it.

I imagine they would tell me to stand tall, take nourishment from my roots. I’m heeding that imaginary advice. In all my years, my connection to the tribe hovered somewhere in the background. I was married under a chuppah, and we sent our kids to Hebrew school. But if you asked me to describe myself in a few words, I probably would have said: “wife,” “mother,” “writer,” “singer,” “friend.” The word “Jew” wouldn’t have made the list. Now, my Judaism has gained solid footing. It lives front and center, and is—if not everything—close to it.

Being Jewish in this “after” means being present for other Jews, even as much of the world turns on us. It means holding space for our collective grief. As a writer, it means supporting Jewish authors: interviewing them, reviewing their books. I use the many “boycott Zionists” lists to find my next read.

And I’ve developed a deeper relationship with the Book—the Torah. I take Torah classes online, attend my local Chabad’s parsha study group, and meet weekly with my lovely “partner in Torah.” I gain great comfort from partaking in this tradition, which connects me to so many generations of my Jews.

On the night of my husband’s death, after the police paid us the notification visit, after I came home from the morgue, I made a promise to myself. Somehow, in the midst of it all, I knew I had been given an opportunity, albeit unwelcome. The pain was too great to waste. I would grow—even if it killed me.

And I did. I managed the tasks my husband had handled and picked up the full weight of those we had shared. I helped my children through school and went back myself, earning two additional master’s degrees. I started my own business, remarried, made a new life in the after. It took time. It wasn’t easy. And still, I am here.

Amidst the despair of October 7, I take more time to notice the beauty around me. The ducks still swim in the ponds, still shake their oily feathers like puppies in the rain. Iguanas still sun, their colors folding into the grass’s green. And the trees. I love how they bend in the wind, stand tall against storms.

I hold gently my mother’s orphanhood, my father’s head wound, my first husband’s death. The befores and the afters. They make me who I am. I will continue to hold them all, as I swim among the losses and the limbos. I will continue to find my way, and so will the Jewish people.

On Being Jewish Now

Echos of Grief

Amidst personal and collective loss, I savor signs of life

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