Every time I see those smiling faces. Every time I get the feeling in my body that my stomach is about to turn.
Since it was announced on Saturday evening that six hostages had been murdered below Rafah, just moments before they were discovered, I have been feeling sick all the time. Just the thought that the fire of six beautiful people – full of life, funny, in the prime of their young lives – has been extinguished forever makes me feel sick.
The knowledge that an unknown number of innocent people are still being held in tunnels for no other reason than that they are Jewish takes an enormous amount of strength from me every day. But the fact that six mothers and fathers have experienced the worst thing that can happen to parents – losing their own child – no longer correlates with my own comprehension.
There is no relativization, no legitimization for having your child taken away from you. And this by people who murder comes naturally. The loss of your own child – especially in the most brutal way – leaves a wound that cannot be healed.
When you are a mother carrying a child and waiting 40 weeks for it to be born healthy and without complications, you feel an incredible sense of gratitude with every day and every month that passes before and after the birth that the child is doing well. It is the ever-recurring moment of incredible happiness that everything is as it should be. And that goes on and on. For a whole lifetime.
Of course, we catapult ourselves through everyday life, overcome hurdles and challenges, and endure defeats. But death remains hidden in the depths of our own imagination. Or rather, it lurks. Because it doesn’t ask when it should appear. Why should it? If it does, we learn the bitter lesson of life that we have to deal with it. Some people are better at it than others.
The parents of so many daughters and sons who have died since October 7, whose children have been stolen from their lives, are still fighting in many ways. They are fighting with the last of their strength for the release of the hostages, they are fighting for negotiations and to make their voices heard. But politicians who do not know what it means to involuntarily hand a child over to murderous thieves like the Hamas terrorists do not listen and cannot empathize with what this theft feels like.
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Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of the murdered Hershel, got up every morning, not knowing whether her son was alive or dead, and fought like a lioness. She prayed for her son. She met with world leaders. She stuck a piece of tape on her chest every morning and counted the days that had passed since his violent disappearance. And she urged everyone to take care, not to give in to hatred and to fight for love.
For 330 days, we watched Rachel Goldberg-Polin show the world the love between a mother and her son. We saw her collapse at the Democratic National Convention, then get up and speak. Just last week, we saw her scream her son’s name in a broken voice at the Gaza border. “Hersh!” she screamed, pain shooting from her chest, “Here’s Mom.” We now know that those hours were likely some of his last.
Tonight I will brush the hair from my children’s faces in bed, cover them with kisses and know that it is my job in this world to keep them safe. Alex, Almog, Carmel, Eden, Hersh and Ori and all the others whose names are not listed here – no one will kiss them anymore. Yes, they are free now. But it is a freedom that came at the highest price. With their lives.
