The After-October 7 Baby

Praying for the return of our children

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.

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Photo by Duygu Güngör on Unsplash

It was February of the darkest year. The winter had been mild—gray and rainy, but no slick roads or blustery cold. In Seattle, the days were getting longer, and the daffodil spears were starting to emerge. The baby’s mother felt the sharp pains that foretold a new life.

The child’s name meant “gold” in Hebrew. I am her grandma, and I called her “the golden one.” I would hold her tiny body, snuggle her, rock her, sing to her. I marveled at her wispy hair—the same shiny, golden-red curls as her mother. To those of us who had waited so long for her, she was our magical princess, our Sleeping Beauty.

Of course, even royal babies tax their parents’ strength. Sometimes, the baby couldn’t be comforted, even by her mother’s always-waiting breast. Sometimes, the baby’s parents were so tired that they cried. But the child became more accustomed to the world, and those days passed.

Three short weeks before the golden one’s birth, we marked the first birthday of another red-haired baby: Kfir Bibas, the youngest person taken hostage by Hamas. Kfir and his four-year-old brother, along with their mother and father, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7. Kfir’s little face still shows up every day on my Instagram. His image is imprinted on my brain. Sometimes, I pray for him; sometimes, I just mourn. His face was plastered on posters all over the world, all over the U.S. Some, out of hatred and malice, ripped those posters down. (You can tell me they had other reasons, but I will not believe you.)

In the war that followed, many other children died. I should not have to say, “I mourn each of those dead babies,” but I do. When I tried to explain my pain to an old friend, she brushed me off.

“Oh, Kfir was killed by friendly fire,” she said. I looked for her source—and found a report from Hamas.

In October, Yahya Sinwar—the leader of the terrorists who kidnapped Kfir and murdered 1,200 Israelis—was killed. If this were a fairy tale, the tunnels would then fill with life. The remaining hostages would be freed. Kfir would celebrate his next birthday in a rose-filled garden, surrounded by loving family.

Sadly, this is real life. Every inch of me prays that the red-haired baby is still alive.

In another fairy tale, Kfir sleeps peacefully for 20 years, surrounded by thorny roses. He grows to manhood; our golden one becomes a righteous warrior. She enters the tunnels—with her Excaliber or her lightsaber or whatever futuristic weapon has been invented—and slashes through the briars. She kisses Kfir, he comes alive, and they live happily ever after.

But we live in no fairy-tale world: we can only wait and pray. In the meantime, our golden one delights in her newfound ability to clap her hands. She blows raspberries to say goodbye, and laughs when I respond in kind. Her dad hopes she will become an astronaut; her mom, a poet. I only hope that I always take joy in her magical presence.

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Kresha Warnock is a writer, mother, wife, retired Early Childhood Educator and FINALLY a grandmother living in the Pacific Northwest. She is working on a memoir, comparing her experiences as a student radical in the Sixties with her current role as the mother of a police officer.

Instagram: @kresharwarnock

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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.