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T he plan was that when my sister-in-law Mindy went to the hospital to have her baby I’d go over to her house to hold down the fort. This would be her fifth; there was a lot to hold down.

So when the phone rang as soon as Shabbos was over I knew my lines. “Gut voch?” I said dropping the encrusted cholent pot back into the sink and already searching for my keys.

“I called you first!” trilled my mother-in-law. “Mindy had a boy!”

“Mazel tov!” I said gathering paraphernalia. My husband appeared at the doorway. Mindy had a boy I mouthed. “So what happened to the kids over Shabbos?” I asked my mother-in-law.

“I think they were divvied up among the neighbors. Could you…?”

“I’m on my way.”

I walked into Mindy’s house without knocking and immediately tripped over Dovid. “You should be in bed mister” I said picking him up without even putting down my keys. In the hallway I passed a teenage neighbor. “Thanks so much for coming ” I said. “Mindy had a boy!”

“Mazel tov” she said looking anxious. “Who’s going to help her?”

“You can go” I assured her. “Thanks a million.”

I put Dovid to bed then I put Shani to bed then I put Devori to bed then I put Yehuda to bed then I put Dovid to bed again. “One second ” I remembered. “Aren’t you taking antibiotics?” Yes he nodded. “Did you take them today?” He shook his head. “Do you know where they are?” No.

I checked the upstairs fridge the downstairs fridge and the medicine cabinet. Stumped I opened the freezer. And then the phone rang.

“Estie?” It was Mindy.

“Mindy mazel tov” I began. “How are you? Listen where are Dovid’s antibiotics?”

“In the top dresser drawer on the right” she said. “He’s still up?”

“Don’t worry everyone else is sleeping” I assured her. “Don’t worry about anything you just rest. You’ll need it!”

The vach-nacht was scheduled for Friday afternoon the shalom zachar for Friday night and the bris for Shabbos morning. I ran errands entertained kids drove carpools and offered to host various siblings and relatives for Shabbos. It was all a little overwhelming. I dipped pretzels into blue chocolate and hoped Mindy was okay.

On Friday morning I went to the local candy store to choose a platter for the shalom zachar. As I stood in line to pay the whiteboard behind the counter caught my eye. It listed all the local simchahs and I searched for Mindy’s name. There it was — Mindy and Eli Steinberg shalom zachar.

Then I noticed the names under Mindy’s. Tziporah and Avraham Kavenberg shalom zachar.

I stared. My hands, gripping the candy platter, began to shake.

I knew Tziporah and Avraham Kavenberg. Tziporah was my roommate in seminary. She had gotten engaged eight weeks after seminary was over. I’d lost touch with her, and although eventually I moved to the town where she lived, I hadn’t kept up with her at all.

I only knew one thing about Tziporah’s life: that she had been married ten years and she had no children.

And now she had a baby boy!

An overwhelming emotion filled me. It almost washed me away, a joy so pure I began to laugh. I could come up with no words for it then, and I still can’t, but it was joy, joy, joy — an indescribable, undiluted, thrilled joy that filled up my whole self and overflowed from my eyes. I wanted to throw my arms out and dance!

I grabbed another candy platter from the display. Mazel tov, I scrawled on the card. May you have lots of nachas! But that hardly expressed how I felt. It was such a beautiful, wonderful world! I stood there, simply grinning, oblivious to anything around me. What a glorious day! What wonderful news!

Of its own accord, my hand closed around my phone and dialed.

“Oh, Estie,” said Mindy. “I can’t talk right now, but I just heard that it’s supposed to rain on Shabbos. Please don’t walk over in the rain. Seriously, I’ll understand.”

“Mindy,” I said fervently, “I wouldn’t miss this simchah for anything.”

“Seriously, Estie. But I have to run. Any special reason you were calling?”

“Mindy,” I said warmly, my voice suffused with emotion, “I called to wish you mazel tov!”