What I Wish You Knew
| June 17, 2025We all have one thing in common. We’re special moms
I’m sitting in a circle with other women, my pen hovering over the spiral-bound notebook in my hand, waiting to hear the writing prompt.
I don’t love writing workshops. I prefer to let a prompt or idea sit in my head and hibernate until it lets me know that it’s ready to come out. This will inevitably take place three minutes before I have to pick the kids up from school, or five minutes after candlelighting and then I’ll be a pain to live with till Motzaei Shabbos. Still, that’s the way it works for me. In a group of other participants, I’ll be watching everyone else scribble and wonder what’s wrong with me, and why can’t I write more than one sentence (that I’ve since scribbled out), and oooh that lady’s handbag is so cool, I wonder if it’s socially off to ask her where it’s from.
This workshop may be different, though. It’s not a writing workshop. The group of women I’m sitting with aren’t necessarily writers. We’re are at varying ages and stages of life, are from all ends of the religious spectrum, and all have one thing in common. We’re special moms.
On a retreat, courtesy of Chaim V’Chessed, where we’ve been wined and dined (okay, minus the wine), pampered, entertained, and inspired. And now a group of us are in the capable hands of the talented moderator who wants to help us use writing as a window… to what?
Write a poem. What I wish you knew. To anyone, anything.
Silence reigns.
I’m doing that writing and crossing out thing. And peeking at my watch. Listening to other pens scratch scratch. This is embarrassing, I literally can’t think of anything to write. I should be fired.
Women are in tears. Literal tears. Like silence reigned and we all got wet. That’s what I write, silence rained….
And then I look around at everyone and think of the thread that binds us all.
How all of us have things we wish you knew. Things we wish you knew without us having to tell you. Because to tell you is to feel like we’re complaining. Or that we’re not managing (even if we’re really not managing, we don’t want to have to tell you.) It might make you hesitate to share of your own lives with us, it might make us feel like we’re living on a different planet. It might make us feel vulnerable, or like we’ll be pitied. Pity is not what we want.
So many mights, that we prefer to remain silent.
And all those mights press on me; build up in my heart and mind, and flow down my arm, until suddenly it’s my pen that’s scratching.
WHAT I WISH YOU KNEW
When you say Shabbos and I say Shabbos, we mean different things.
Even though my challos and your challos are crisp and warm and delicious, yours are eaten or maybe left to be swept into a palm, while mine are crumbled and grabbed and stuffed in a ravenous mouth — stolen from a crying four-year-old or swiped from under my husband’s arm.
And even though my seudah and your seudah are sometimes punctuated by bickering and crying and spilled drinks, yours will one day be calmed by kids who have grown up — and mine ruined by one who can never be taught.
And even though I take my kids to the park and you take your kids to the park, you watch your kids jumping on the grass, climbing monkey bars, sliding down, down — and I watch your kids staring at mine in a wheelchair.
So what I wish you knew when we talk after Shabbos, my dear friend, sister, neighbor…
What I wish you knew
When I say I’m tired, and you say you’re tired…
We’re not even speaking the same language.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 948)
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