Last week my son got engaged. We are over-the-moon happy and can’t wait for this couple to start their lives together.
As I was walking to shul on Shabbat and thinking about his life and the arcs it has taken, I was overcome by the movie of his life. It all felt like snapshots….and they’ve all gone so quickly.
Snapshot
He is only a few hours old. My first reaction to holding him is “wow, this is one solid guy.” From the moment of his birth he has felt solid, strong, large. I try that first night in the hospital not to sleep with him (as many parenting books and healthcare professionals explain the dangers of co-sleeping). As he cries in the crib next to me, a nurse walks into the room, pulls him out, tucks him under my arm, declares, “there, that’s what he needs” and walks out. He will be with me for months afterwards…
Snapshot
He is 1.5 years old. He’s been sucking his thumb to sooth himself since he was two months old…but he’s just discovered fuzzy balls. This is the name we give to his cotton ball obsession once he learns to speak. For now, he holds a cotton ball in one hand literally 24 hours a day, and sucks his thumb with the other.
Snapshot
He’s 3 years old and we’ve just moved around the world to a place he doesn’t know, with a language he can’t speak. Every single day he walks into daycare with a smile on his face and with the desire to communicate as soon as possible. His joy, his confidence, his flexibility make us marvel.
Snapshot
He’s 5 and struggling in kindergarten. Last year, his first friend in Israel died in an accident and he’s been taking it very hard. It’s a lot to navigate but we work on it each day and memorialize Chanan in many different ways (still to this day in 2026).
Snapshot
It’s his bar mitzvah and it’s snowing so heavily that his grandfather and uncle turn around in NY on their way to Israel…and go back to LA. We’ve got a 4×4 delivering our shabbat food to our door; we’ve all got our snow boots out for the walk to shul; and the bar mitzvah boy, his brother and his grandmother all have strep by the time the party arrives on Sunday. But there is great joy and great celebration through the slight chaos.
Snapshot
He’s 16 and has been accepted to a competitive travel basketball team that is spending two weeks in the States during the summer playing at American summer camps. He’s wearing his uniform with the Israeli flag proudly displayed and my Zionist heart is melting.
Snapshot
He’s 18 and graduating from the most incredible high school experience. But COVID is raging around the world, and so the graduation picture includes him and two of his teachers on a mountain somewhere in Israel. He’s had the most amazing four years.
Snapshot
We’ve driven to Eilat to experience his yeshiva life. The joy, singing, laughter and learning are infectious and lovely. During some of his downtime, he creates a beautiful piece for my birthday out of wood that says ‘אם הבנים שמחה הללויה’
Snapshot
He’s given his entire heart to reach the goals he has set for himself for the army. It all falls apart in various ways straight up to his enlistment day and beyond. And yet, he shows up Every.Single.Day and gives the absolute best that he has to offer. My heart aches for his initial path, for the decisions that were thrust upon him. But in perfect fashion for his personality, he pushes through and shines; his strengths are revealed in different ways and a remarkable path opens up before him.
Snapshot
It’s October 7, 2023 and we stand by the door. He’s in a hurry; he needs to get to base. We’ve quickly fed him and helped him to gather whatever equipment we can find in the house. I try to stay strong through my hug, through my words of encouragement, until he leaves the house and then I fall apart in a way that I’ve never experienced in my life.
Snapshot
That experience, however, will become the norm rather than the outlier. We go to many funerals to stand by the families, to pay respect to the fallen, and to represent the son who can’t be there while he’s fighting. We race to this base or that when he tells us he’ll have an hour available; when he asks that we buy and bring socks, underwear, specialized equipment. We catch him sporadically on the phone and pour all of our love, all of our prayers, all of our strength through the screen and into his heart. And then we fall apart over and over again when the phone goes dark.
Snapshot
Now he is an officer and we have the honor of attending the ceremony when he gives the berets to his own soldiers. What a moment that is for a mother, to see her son become the leader, the example that others are following. We pray that the responsibility, the heavy responsibility, won’t become too much. That he will be able to lead by example while keeping himself and his soldiers safe through the fires they will confront.
Snapshot
We greet the girlfriend, and we turn to mush. This seems to be it. We pray that he has found the one to whom he can give and take; the one who will complete him and to whom he can be a completion. They call together on that Tuesday evening between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with their news, with their excitement. And we dance through the streets of Neve Daniel, playing אח שלי מתחתן and singing at the top of our lungs.
Snapshots.
This is what I see as they smile through the phone and yell that they are engaged. This is what I see as I walk to shul thinking about my son, and his lovely fiancé. A lifetime of snapshots, of love, protection, devotion, devastation, hope and renewal. May these snapshots all add up to the foundation upon which he begins to build his new home; and may we be able to add many more snapshots of future growth, happiness and family for decades and decades to come.
