I wait. But my yeshuah doesn’t come

Chanukah. Two years ago.

The wait feels long already, and when the article catches my eye, it feels like the answer to my tefillos. A woman longing for a daughter after waiting many years buys beautiful muffin toppers and doilies for her future daughter’s kiddush. She places them next to her husband’s menorah and davens heartfelt tefillos to be zocheh to another child.

And “just like that,” she has a keili for her brachah. By the next Chanukah, she holds a beautiful baby girl in her arms.

Inspired, I wonder what I can use as a keili to hold the brachah I so desperately crave. As the years pass by with no other child in sight, is my oldest destined to be my only?

I buy a beautiful pair of candlesticks. Crystal. They glisten in the lighting of the store and I wrap them up to keep them safe until I can light the pair of them together. One for my son, one for my next child.

I wait. But my yeshuah doesn’t come.

The candlesticks lie abandoned in a drawer. Waiting. Waiting….

Chanukah. One year ago.

I sit in front of the candles and gaze into the dancing flames. Chanukah is a time for tefillah, I tell myself firmly. As I sit, my eyes well up with the tears I try to hold back on a daily basis. When? When will I be zocheh to another child? When will it be my turn?

My hand reaches for the phone almost of its own accord. I call my younger sister and sob down the phone.

“Racheli,” I beg, “would you learn something with me as a zechus for me to have another child?”

There’s an awkward silence on the other end of the line. I’ve never been this open with her before. Sometimes I think she feels guilty, knowing that she has two children, born in quick succession, while my oldest is growing up with no sibling in sight.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “You can cry. Yes, let’s learn something together. Maybe it will bring a yeshuah.”

We begin that very night. We choose Shaar Habitachon, in the hope that it will inspire us and bring the change we long for.

Days turn into weeks. Weeks into months. Winter becomes spring and summer. And still nothing happens.

Chanukah 5786.

My sister is due to have her third child. Instead of our tefillos being answered for me, it is she who will b’ezras Hashem welcome another child into the world.

I opened myself up for brachah, I tried to learn, to create extra zechuyos, and still, my miracle has not come.

Where did my script go wrong?

The stories we hear are of the miracles that happened, but not of the segulos tried and the tears shed, seemingly without results. And I wonder, is it the happy endings that we live for, or is it the work we put in that matters?

I would never exchange my journey for anyone else’s. I know this pekel was tailor-made for me. So I ask myself, will I one day look back and say that the wait wasn’t in vain? That it taught me to trust and love Hashem even when it hurts? I hope so.

This Chanukah, I once again sit beside the flickering candles and daven. Perhaps this year, Hashem will grant me my miracle.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 973)