So round I went. Sister went to her aunt’s house. Little Boy was safely dropped off at Tatty’s shul where Big Brother would bring him out after an hour. Mommy sat with Special Teen in the park until the volunteer arrived.

All too soon, I made the trek backward to collect my kids. Pushing a wheelchair with one hand and a stroller with the other, I rushed to pick up Sister from my niece’s shul. Up the steps, first the wheelchair, brake, then the stroller. No one offered help. A man raised his voice when the wheelchair rolled a bit because I hadn’t noticed a slight slope. Reach the building. Go around the building. One minyan, no. Another, no. A third, also not the right one.

Exhausted, I was about to leave, hoping my daughter would be okay, would get home with her cousins, when a young mother told me that the minyan I was looking for was on the third floor. She kindly offered to watch my kids, while I went up myself.

I found Sister and took everyone home. At least there was an extra pair of hands to push the stroller.

Gave kids to eat, went to change, and my heart stopped.

The bangle was gone.

I looked at my bare arm in disbelief. I had definitely worn it earlier. Seen it on my wrist in shul. Walked all over since then. It could be anywhere.

Crushed. I was crushed.

Hashem! Enough. It’s enough.

Simchas Torah, don’t cry.

After Husband came home and made Kiddush and hamotzi, I ran out to retrace my steps. A lot of steps.

At night, everything sparkles. A lot of shiny wrappers on the ground. And a lot of bitter thoughts going round my mind. Hoshana Rabbah only passed a few hours ago! Already? Why, Hashem, why?

Hopes raised — there! And dashed. A piece of foil.

A twinkling on the ground. A quickening of my heart. No. Just a few ripped Succos decorations from a pop-up sale.

Is it so bad for me to want to treat myself once in a blue moon? Is it something You didn’t want me to have?

Everything I endured just this evening, isn’t that enough?

I was not in a good place.

With every step, though, I tried to strengthen my resolve:  This won’t destroy me. I won’t lose my emunah over a piece of jewelry.

A glint of glass. Heart leaps.

Not it.

And my kids, they should see what matters. I’ll tell them that it’s hard, but whatever Hashem does is for the best.

At the barrier where the wheelchair had rolled, a gleam. Don’t get your hopes up!

It was my bangle, lying just under the barrier.

Thank You, Hashem. Thank You, Hashem. Thank You—

It was my bangle. Mangled, scratched. Completely twisted out of shape.

I carried it home, my brain running through what I was going to say to my family when I walked in.

There’s good news and there’s bad news… and we spoke about gam zu letovah… and who is responsible for a faulty clasp… and I put the bangle in its box and stowed it away.

The next morning, our world exploded.

In my mind, this will always be The War of No Words.

We were not created with a capacity to understand the things we heard. The scope of it; macro or micro. None of it.

We totter through the days, the weeks, like drunkards, blind people groping in thick blackness for something to hold on to. We struggle against drowning in questions of our own making. We freeze, we cry, we try to focus.

And those of us further away from the radial point struggle with thinking of food. Laundry. Carpool. Haircuts? No, no haircuts, we can’t, we need to, but how can we with the pain pulsing fiercely under thin veneers of pretend normalcy?

Is it right to enjoy life? Should we? May we? Can we?

We fight opposing thoughts as we go to weddings, celebrate new lives born to Am Yisrael.

We say Tehillim, daven intensely, think of our soldiers fighting a war that belongs to all of us. But still we are here, mommies of kids who lose their shoes and fight over who finished the ketchup. Still we are here, going to work because that’s what we need to do in the here and now.

And then one evening, in the middle of trivialities like suppertime and bath time, my husband asks me about my bracelet.

I go to my bedroom, open the box, cradle it in my palm.

Will repairing it be excessive in the face of carnage destruction ripping searing shattering—

Will leaving it this way help all those who were wrenched away from This World? Will it bring back the men, women, children, babies, oh, Hashem, the babies—

Shouldn’t I fix it, turn it into a symbol of how we’ll never break, never surrender, will always believe in Hashem, You have a Plan, ani ma’amin—

I hold my broken bangle and think of shever bas ami.

Maybe some other time.

I close the lid gently and return the box to its drawer.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 867)