I said it — and I meant it. But I certainly wasn’t at peace. I brimmed over with bitterness, grieved for what would never be.

I believed, as we all do, that my loss was one that could never be overcome. But mourning does eventually give way to peace of mind. So it was that the days leading up to Yom Kippur found baby cousins becoming happy recipients of our Pack ’n Play, Snap-N-Go, Bounce ’n Spring (what is the baby-stuff-inventors’ obsession with that little ‘n’?), which I now knew — and accepted — I wouldn’t need again.

I did save the baby clothes. The former wearer of the wardrobe objected: “Ima, what if you give away all my clothes and then we have another baby?” Besides, every one of the tiny outfits told a story, and giving away all those pink frilly and yellow-and-green striped stories was too much even for the new serene me. So the clothes stayed while the rest of the baby stuff went. And as we flew off to Australia to celebrate our only child’s seventh birthday with her paternal grandparents, I left the shards of my six-month grief process behind.

The day after our return, the phone rang. The screen flashed: “Sarit calling.” There had been a time when I had dialed Sarit, from the government adoption agency, regularly. Eventually, I reduced my pathetic “anything to tell us?” query to every six months, before finally accepting that Sarit really would, as she often promised, call me if she ever did have “anything to tell us.” But she never did. Until now.

“It’s Sarit from Sherut L’Ma’an Hayeled,” the familiar voice came through. “I’d like you and Tzvi to be at my office at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.” My breath caught. “I’m not allowed to discuss matters with you over the telephone. But if I were, I’d tell you that this is a potentially life-changing meeting…”