While too few ask its significance, the thin strip of adhesive I replace each morning has cemented its implication for me. Since October 7, my world has narrowed in on Israel. My morning news briefing has focused on developments there; my choice of podcasts has shifted to news and commentary on the situation. I’m headed to Israel soon on a mission. But since I’ve started counting the days, I have found myself truly reckoning them.

Each day marks the death of the one before; another 24 hours of real life stolen from the captives. While I am busy with my daily routine, the hostage captives have been deprived of that — and much more. Every day, I have food to eat. I breathe fresh air. I sleep in my bed. I am surrounded by my family. I have my freedom. But from little Kfir Bibas, who just turned one, to Shlomo Mansour, age 85, the hostages have none of these. For 135 days and counting.

My children are also more cognizant. They know there’s a war in Israel; they’ve written letters to soldiers, and they recite prayers and Tehillim in school each day. But now, each morning, they count along with me. Every so often, they remind me to write out the day’s number. Some of my children are too young to understand the situation, and certainly too young to be explained its brutality, but I appreciate that this creates a subtle and constant awareness for them.

At night, once the tag has fulfilled its transitory duty, it finds a new home on my kitchen wall, where columns of black numbers are forming. The second or third day in, I hesitated before discarding the tag.

This is too sanctified to toss, I decided, and I stuck it on the wall above my phone charger. Ironically, that space lies just beneath our family calendar — a double counting — and as the weeks and months pass, the days mournfully accrue. Like a prisoner’s accounting — but figures, instead of strokes, adorn my wall.

I see these numbers every morning, I see them every night.

I count, and every day reinforces the awareness of just how many days have elapsed. I count, and feel the captives’ torturous suffering increasing day by day. I count, and know that each setting sun decreases their chances of survival and freedom.

To feel, to partake, to attest, I count.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1000)