I thought that divorce meant saying goodbye to one person in your life

Dear Seminary Girl on the Airplane,

The flight was filled with many of you; indistinguishable with the same long hair parted down the middle, white platform sneakers, and dainty gold jewelry. Girls who are not yet women, but will be by the end of this year. But when I saw your face, I recognized you right away. Of course, I did. I’ve known you since you were born.

I watched you grow up, giggling with your younger sisters and playing card games with your cousins, among them my own daughter, with whom you share a name — you are both named after your great-grandmother. It’s been a while since I saw you last. Five years, maybe. But I remember you. You are my niece, after all.

No — that isn’t quite right. You are not my niece.

You were my niece.

I thought that divorce meant saying goodbye to one person in your life. What I didn’t anticipate was losing dozens of family members: in-laws, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews. I hadn’t imagined that 17 years of family could vanish in one day. A beautiful, lovingly built sandcastle erased in the swell of a single high tide.

I look at you and wonder how your family is doing. I wonder if you spent last Yom Tov at your grandparents in Lakewood, like our families did for so many years. I wonder if there have been any new simchahs in the family. If there are any new babies who also share the names of my children.

I look at you, and I can’t help but remember. I remember how, even when you were small, you slipped your tiny feet into my high heels and walked around beaming, ready to be a “mommy.” I remember how, after Yom Tov meals, your mother, who always liked things perfectly clean, stayed up after everyone went to bed to zestfully sweep every last challah crumb off the floor.

I remember how, at the Seder each year, your grandfather — my father-in-law — would ask the grandchildren how much money they wanted for their afikomen present. They gleefully shouted out, “Seven hundred!” or “Nine thousand!” —knowing full well the joke that would follow. “Okay,” your grandfather would say, “I’ll give you that — but without the zeros.”

I remember the year your Savta bought fingerless rabbit-fur gloves for each daughter and daughter-in-law visiting for Succos. As I sat with the family in your grandparents’ spacious succah, the soft black gloves warming my hands from the nighttime chill, I felt completely at home. I had lost my own mother as a child, and I felt a kinship with your Savta that I had with no one else.

I remember how your father would grab free moments to sit on the couch and learn, I remember your mother’s ready laugh. I have 17 years of little memories like this, little memories that fill a sad hole in my heart. I look at you and wonder: Do you even know who I am?

When the airplane lands, I call out your name. It takes three tries before you turn my way.

“Do you remember me?” I ask you. I grip my handbag. I hope I’m not embarrassing you in front of your friends, this strange woman you can’t seem to place. You shake your head.

“I am your—” I freeze. This is harder than I thought it would be. “I was your aunt.”

A light of recognition dawns on your face. You nod. You remember me — of course, you do. I wonder what you remember. I wonder how your family shared the news of the divorce with you. I wonder how all of you are doing now. I wonder if your family can ever know how raw this loss still feels.

I find myself shaking as though I’ve done something wrong. I think of how many times I will, by chance, meet one of your siblings, cousins, or aunts, and how it will remind me over and over again of the family I lost. I think that no matter how much it hurts, I will always feel connected to your family, a phantom that exists where I do not.

“I miss you guys so much,” I say to you. “Be well.” I take one last look and I walk away.

Signed,

Your Once-upon-a-Time Aunt

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 905)