Chocolate Affirmation Esther Kurtz I never expressed feelings of hatred to my mother no matter what the instigation. But at least once a day I’d tell my mother “You don’t love me.” I did not scream it or cry it. It wasn’t a response to being provoked. It was a dispassionate matter-of-fact comment “You don’t love me ” the same way you might comment “It’s raining.” My mother would always respond “I love you Esther.” She didn’t push didn’t insist didn’t get upset but would tell me of her love in the same way I denied her truth. One day I came home from school shook off my knapsack and my mother asked how my snack was. I shrugged — it was regular chips (we didn’t do fancy snacks) and besides that wasn’t part of her usual repertoire of welcome home questions. “You didn’t find anything in your knapsack?” she asked. I shook my head no. My mother took my knapsack from my hands opened it and started rummaging. She pushed aside old notes the school had sent home and a notebook I should have left in school a Shabbos project I never took out and on the bottom now a little smushed a chocolate bar.