Dear Mom,

It says a lot that I’m not even sure how to begin this letter to you. There are so many words circling my head. So many thoughts I want to spew out onto this page. Where do I begin?

Do I begin with the tragedy? Do I tell you about the most horrific day in Israel? The massacre. The death. The loss. Do I then tell you about the war that followed? The continued loss of life. The death toll that keeps climbing.

Do I tell you about the world’s response? The rise in antisemitism? The fear and hate and misinformation that riddles the internet on all sides. Each perspective being right and also so wrong. Do I tell you about the fractured relationships? The ends of friendships? The number of times I’ve had to explain to people in my life why we all matter and also why I am not the enemy simply because I am Jewish. Do I tell you about my own struggles with my identity as a Jewish person? My attempts at wearing my Star of David necklace and my decision to put it back in my drawer.

Do I mention that it all began on October 7^th? That while concert goers were being murdered, I was busy celebrating my daughter’s birthday. That I didn’t even know it was happening until much later in the day after we’d cleaned up the party and tucked the kids into bed. It took me weeks, possibly months, to start to acknowledge that this day. My daughter’s birthday. Your birthday. Will forever be remembered for a bloody massacre and the start of a war.

I used to wonder how people who were born on September 11^th felt. Each year on their birthday, even all these years later, they wake up to an internet full of messages to never forget. I wonder if those people ever struggle with the balance of joy and sadness. Do they struggle to mourn and celebrate on the same day?

My daughter has no clue of the scale of the tragedy that happened on her birthday. On your birthday. She knows something happened. She knows a war is happening. But I didn’t fill her in on all the gory details. Not yet. There will come a day when she does find out. After years of never forgets reminding us all, she will find out that her birthday is now one of those days. One of the days when we collectively mourn the loss of life.

She may not know yet what this day holds. But I do. And for me? It feels overwhelming.

October was already a challenging time of year for me. Not only have I had to balance the joy of celebrating my daughter on the same day I remember your life but then only twenty days later I am faced with the anniversary of your death. This time of year, is a lot to process. This year it weighs exponentially more. 

This week marks the one-year anniversary of October 7^th as its referred to. I’ve spent the last weeks thinking about how I was going to be able to squeeze it all into one day. October 7^th has been, for the last 8 years, a day that I already mourn and celebrate. Now I must learn how to continue to find the balance when the mourning outweighs the celebration so heavily. How? How do I manage it? How do I remember the large-scale loss of life without becoming a pool of tears while she’s blowing out her candles? How do I show up for my daughter without feeling disrespectful to all the dead. To all the suffering. To all the grieving. 

It feels wrong to even be happy on October 7^th. It feels selfish to sing happy birthday. To ask someone to make a wish. To open presents and to celebrate life. 

I wish it wasn’t this way. I wish my daughter could have a birthday without the clouds of grief hanging over us. But it feels insensitive to even think that thought. It feels wrong to care at all. Why should it matter? There is horror in this world on every birthday. There is no escaping it. Maybe it’s the magnitude of this particular moment in time. The level of mourning that is required for this event. For this massacre and the pain that surrounds it. Maybe it’s the gravity of this specific grief that makes it so challenging to make space for joy. 

This is hardly a new idea for us as Jewish people or for the larger world. We as a people have had to find this balance quite often throughout history and I doubt there are many people out there who haven’t had to contemplate how to celebrate while grieving. Afterall, death is a part of life. We all experience it.

Perhaps I can look at the Jewish calendar for inspiration. October 7^th this year has fallen pretty evenly between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This time of year, is full of duality. It’s full of nuance and balance and grappling with our own demons. We celebrate a new year full of hope for the future and then turn around a week later to atone our sins. 

It’s all a balancing act.

We as Jewish people are accustomed to this idea of balance. This push and pull of joy and sadness. Celebration and mourning. Hope and despair.

Sometimes, we must grieve while making space for life and we must thrive while making space for loss. As Jews we are told to reroute our grief when we are faced with such a dilemma. That the joy takes precedent over the mourning.

Throughout the last eight years I have found a balance that has worked for me most of the time. I have found a way for me to mourn your absence while celebrating her all on the same day. Mostly, I remind myself that you didn’t die on October 7^th, and I remember you fondly on your birthday. But it’s not perfect. I still struggle. I still get angry that you can’t share a cake with her. I still wish you could celebrate together. I’m still attempting to succeed in my balance between joy and sadness. And now, beyond my usual challenges, I must make space for an abundance of grief. How do I make enough space to remember the 1100 who died that day? How do I make space for the hostages who were taken and the sliver of them that are still alive and hoping to be rescued? How do I make space for all the people, mostly children, who’ve died since that day in the war that seems to have no end?

Honestly, I think the answer is, well, I won’t. I won’t be able to make space for it all. Not always. I don’t know how to get through this day without screwing something up, but I do think that acknowledging that truth is my key to growth. I believe that being honest with myself and giving myself permission to be wrong will only help in my journey to finding some semblance of balance. I must recognize the complexities of this day and be gentle with myself when I inevitably falter.

Going forward, each October 7^th can be a day for me to attempt to find my own balance between the extreme love I have for my daughter and the equally extreme sadness I have for the loss of lives. I can continue to remember you and how important you were to me while also feeling resentment that you aren’t here to share in this birthday celebration. I can feel sorrow deep within while also feeling gratitude. Perhaps someday I will be able to balance the two seamlessly. For now, I may struggle with this dilemma. I may battle with myself each year to find the stability I need to get through this day. I will very likely make mistakes and lean too far into my grief. Or I will lean too far into my joy and then feel guilty later for not thinking enough about the lives lost.

Perhaps, in the future, I will be able to squeeze it all in on one day. I will be able to mourn the loss of life that happened on October 7^th while also feeling joy in the celebration of two people who fill me with so much love and hope without feeling like I’m doing something wrong. It may happen. Or I might find that it’s not possible for me. That I must spend all of the 7^th focusing all of me on her and that I must reroute my grief to another day entirely. And if that is what works best for me, then that is the correct choice. That is my balance. 

For now, it feels right for me to allow the celebration to come first. For me, my daughter comes first. And I have to remind myself that I am not disrespecting the deceased in putting her first. I’m not ignoring the grieving. I am simply postponing the mourning for one day so I can focus all of my energy and put all of myself into celebrating my daughter’s life.

We’re coming up on the ten-year anniversary of your death and one thing I have learned during this last decade is that there are no real rules to grieving. There are no parameters to sadness. I know I prefer to separate my grief from my joy. I prefer to mourn you on a day other than your birthday. I prefer to not be sad on Scotland’s big day. But there is also no way I can assure that I will avoid my grief on her birthday. There is no way I can guarantee that I can wait until tomorrow to mourn the loss. But by giving myself grace and the permission to mourn tomorrow, I can fully celebrate my girl without feeling guilty. I can be OK with the idea of putting joy first. And I can be OK with a little instability in my life. Maybe it doesn’t have to all be balanced. 

I love you, Mom.

Love, 

Rachel