To feel, to partake, to attest, I count

Every morning, I write a number in black Sharpie on a thin strip of masking tape and press it to my shirt. Today is somehow 135. Tomorrow will likely be 136. Each figure marks the number of days that kidnapped children, women, and men — babies and elderly — have remained in brutal captivity under Hamas. It also marks the number of days since Hamas viciously tortured and killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7, igniting the devastating war in Gaza.

I started this ritual on Day 100, following a rousing post by Rachel Goldberg, the vocal mother of captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin. In it, she appealed to viewers to don the number should we reach Day 100.

We did. And we’ve long passed it. When I consider how crazy it is that I’ve been doing this for five weeks, I immediately shift to how surreal it is that the hostages have been captive four times as long.

I thought that posting the number on my shirt would simply pay homage to the hostages, one small thing I could do to draw attention to their plight and to the war at large. Wherever I go, the number is emblazoned for all to see — my yellow star. It elicits brief comments from friends and acquaintances, who either ask what it signifies or nod somberly with understanding.

Strangers don’t ask, though. Not the bank teller, who notarized a document while I sat at her desk; nor my kids’ pediatrician, who saw us three days in a row; nor the women I work out with multiple times a week at the gym.