Something inside me twists. I’ve spent all week preparing for the end of a life, yet this is even harder to reconcile

“Tell me something about Zeide,” I ask my aunt.

We’re sitting at my grandfather’s bed, listening to the swoosh, release, swoosh, release of his oxygen tank, watching his chest rise and fall. The morphine in the clear bag above his bed slides through the IV line and, one drip at a time, it enters his arm. It’s meant to keep him calm, keep him asleep, keep him out of pain.

We’ve been at his bed for over a week, a rotating cast of children, grandchildren, and greats, here to say Tehillim and call the family in case something changes.

“What do you want to know?” my aunt asks. Anything, I tell her. I want to hear the stories that make my zeide’s shrinking form feel closer to life than death.

“No matter how busy he was preparing for his shiurim, he always had time for us,” she says. “People say his first love has always been Torah, but I’d like to think that he loved his children even more.”

I inhale and exhale in rhythm with the oxygen tank, staying silent so she’ll continue talking.

“Did you know that there was another child?” she asks suddenly.

My breath catches. I pull away from my grandfather’s bed and stare at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Between me and your mother, Bubbe and Zeide had another girl. She lived for a few months, but she never made it home from the hospital.”

Something inside me twists. I’ve spent all week preparing for the end of a life, yet this is even harder to reconcile.

“Your mother never told you?” my aunt asks.

I search for my grandfather’s cool hand under the pile of blankets, then shake my head as I clasp my arm around his.

“Makes sense,” she continues. “I never told my kids either.”