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Home
and Family
Five Hellos
by Rifca Goldberg
I wonder what it'll feel like when I arrive, after 120 years,
and there you'll all be — all five of you. What will
you look like? Me? My husband? One of the other children or
perhaps a grandparent? Or will you just be misty souls? I've
heard, or read, that you'll run into my arms. I close my eyes
and can feel my nose rubbing against each of your soft little
cheeks; my arms overflowing with you all.
I know each one of you even though I don't know any of you. I
love each of you even though I only had a few days to feel
that excited feeling - that fluttering of stomach and heart;
the unbelievable reality of miracle: - "I'm expecting." And
then, well, you went back Up and I waited until a child
actually rested in my arms a year or so later. Maybe I kissed
all of my children that much more because of the loss of each
of you. Maybe I complained slightly less during difficult
pregnancies out of gratitude for what I hoped for.
Yet sometimes, while I nurse my latest newborn, my mind goes
to places of "what could have been," "what might have been."
But you can't overlap children. If any of you had been born,
what would have happened to the child that was born eleven or
twelve months later? They would have been different
altogether.
But G-d knows what's best. I'm so thankful for my seven
beautiful children! And all of the 'what if's — they're
just 'what if's.
Still, sometimes when I'm half day-dreaming, while hanging up
little pants as well as small dresses, or while ironing
shirts for my boys in yeshiva . . . sometimes I wonder.
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